25 things ive learnt in 25 weeks of being 18

Now that I am 18, I feel like I have magically gained a lot of life experience and that I should share this with the world. Some of my new found wisdom is a little superficial but I think there is something to actually be learnt amongst the nonsense. These are not necessarily things I regret or things I would do differently, but they're just little pointers I think everyone ought to know.

1. Alcohol is a great cure for feeling a little hung up on things; even if it is a natural aphrodisiac (will smith opened my eyes to what an aphrodisiac was when I listened to Summertime at just 11 years old, my poor parents)

2. There is no one else you should spend your birthday with than your best friends and I sort of think that this applies for every day off you have – even if you're going to have to get up at 8am whilst you're on study leave; get up and go out - it will be worth it

3. Also get up at 7am and go to the damn library and revise rather than just sitting on your ass for a week hating yourself and worrying about how little revision you’ve done – you’ll feel a lot better for doing it and being proactive

4. Just check the fucking weather forecast, for god’s sake, just check it

5. Always carry a sanitary towel or a tampon in that secret compartment in your bag – if not for you, for a friend in need

6. Enjoy whatever you want to enjoy because no one can justifiably hate on you because you have a passion for something (to be honest, I learnt this a year or so before I was 18 but it has been proven and validated whilst I was 18 as well)

7. You should also stand up for yourself, if you know you're right or feel so strongly about something, then you shouldn’t compromise in order to conform to someone else

8. BOYS ARE LITERALLY SOME OF THE DUMBEST CREATURES TO WALK THE PLANET AND THAT’S IN BOTH A PLANTONIC-DUMB-BUT-I-STILL-LOVE-YOU KIND OF WAY, AND ALSO BECAUSE BOYS ARE NOT WORTH THE PROBLEMS THEY CAUSE (well some of them)

9. Please please please just do your notes consistently throughout the year and keep them organised, you will really appreciate it when you come to revise and, although you can survive without doing this, it makes things a whole load easier

10. Don’t get involved in things that don’t concern you – sometimes its family issues and sometimes its problems your friends have and the best way to go about these things is to give the best advice you can but don’t be a bitch, and don’t stick your oar in when it’s not wanted or needed

11. Put some serious effort into making a huge playlist/masterpost of all your favourite songs on Spotify – when you have no idea what you want to listen to, a playlist like this will be a lifesaver

12. Following on from this, learn the entire rap to a couple of songs and when you go to parties or find yourself on a dancefloor, you will super appreciate it because you will feel 😎 [sunglasses emoji]

13. Just hit send, stop pissing about and press send

14. If your friend recommends a film, write it down in a note – it’s like when people say that you should always listen to a song if someone specifically recommends it to you, the same goes for a movie. This person thought that film would be right up your street; give it a watch

15. Make long term plans that will actually happen and are feesable – whether it’s a little trip to the cinema, your friends coming round to watch that film on Netflix you’ve been itching to watch, or a mini holiday – you’ll have something to look forward to in the long term

16. If you're an arty person, buy a little journal and draw in it, stick ticket stubs in it, tape old leaves in it, collect stickers in it, save photos in it (or drawings of photos is good too) – and if you're not an arty person; I don’t know go solve an equation or something

17. Invest in a portable charger, I cannot tell you how many times that thing has saved my bacon at gigs or in the library or when you forget to put your phone on charge overnight (and keep it charged even if you have no immediate plans to use it!! you never know when you may need to grab it before you dash out for a few hours on 19pc charge)

18. If you think something looks good fucking wear it - if you feel great prancing about to that Spotify playlist at 11pm taking selfies the night before, I can assure you that it looks just as good in the daylight the next morning

19. Write letters when you stumble home from a party after drinking a little too much red wine, the recipient might even keep those letters and find them a year later or pin them on their dorm wall at uni. When you're drunk this stuff comes straight from the heart and it’s totally unfiltered – also don’t be afraid to redo something! You’ve already written a letter but missed something you meant to say? Write another letter; what's the issue?

20. When revising; know when you need to take a break, but don’t be making excuses for yourself left, right, and centre – yeah you went to bed at 1am after watching a film on putlocker, but you knew fine well you had to get up at 8am the next morning – you don’t deserve that lie in every day of study leave.

21. T a k e   p h o t o s ,  t a k e  l o t s  o f  p h o t o s

22. Be a little more observant and a little less concerned about being doted over – your friends have issues too try and help them (you can genuinely help someone and forget about your troubles for a bit too), but don’t let yourself be ignored – friendship is a 2 way thing

23. Yeah it’s great to mix things up a bit, but sometimes you can’t beat spaghetti bolognaise

24. “just fuck it” or alternatively “YOLO” is not always the best policy, just trust me on this one

And last, but by absolutely no mean least, my life motto:

25. JUST DO WHAT U GOTTA DO

the worst thing ive done in my life

Is it normal to be sitting in an exam hall absolutely petrified and shaking, gulping down water in an attempt to calm you nerves, and tapping your foot so fast it’s a blur? Because that’s what I saw as I looked around me in the exam hall this morning just before my history exam. To be fair it was, by far, my hardest exam I’m sitting this year and I wasn’t looking forward to it at all; but that level of anxiety and nervousness is something on a whole new level.

I myself was feeling the pinch as I walked into the gym this morning, but I have never found myself so nervous and worried about what awaited me on the other side of that piece of paper. Maybe it was because that exam was worth 30pc of my overall Alevel ,or I felt that I hadn’t revised enough, but I don’t think lying wide awake at 2am the night before with your phone on do not disturb and panicking, is how exams are supposed to make you feel.

This year more than ever I have been feeling pressure to perform well at school and in exams; and it stresses me the fuck out. Sometimes I feel like coming to such a high performing school/college is the worst thing I’ve ever done to myself. I know for sure that on GCSE results day 2 years ago, I was way too hard on myself because (deep down) I know that achieving straight As and Bs is not a bad letter to be pulling out of that envelope. Nevertheless I was wailing in the street (how embarrassing) and crying on the sofa at home. It was all because I thought that I wasn’t going to get into this college and that I’d let my family down, let my old school down, and most importantly let myself down (classic). But, yanno, with a little bit of retrospective you realise that it literally isn’t the end of the world. So, yeah I was disappointed with my C in Statistics, but now that I can’t even remember how a stem and leaf diagram works, I’m really not that bothered?!

Before I even arrived at this college I was feeling the pressure to perform well just to get in. It kind of messes with you when you’re so stressed about school. In the past I’ve tried to never let my schoolwork get in the way of my literal sanity, but the high demands of getting your grades to get into university and this grammar school level performance, have messed me up a bit. Like I said, sometimes I feel like coming here was the worst decision I’ve ever made and I don’t enjoy it at all as an institution. I have some fucking major clashes with the ethos of this place. It seems that all my friends at some point or another find themselves sitting with the school councillor and, not only is that sad, that’s just wrong. Why should young girls be in such a way that they need counselling, or it all gets too much and just comes flowing out to someone, anyone, who’ll listen. Also, some teachers are really bad at spotting the signs of mental health issues and sometimes just when you have a problem. I told my form tutor I was having a rough time at home, but then a week later when I got a note in the register to go and see my English teacher and left but didn’t go because I was so anxious to see her about my coursework, I got shouted at and humiliated in a room full of my classmates. The fact that some teachers are so unwilling to accept that you have a problem that prevents you from getting on with your school work is horrendous. It’s very easy to tell someone to momentarily put aside their problems and focus on the task in hand, but when it’s a massive problem looming over you and occupying your every thought – it’s not so bloody easy.

It’s also why I was so concerned during the election about the topic of mental health because there are such massive problems around it, such as the underfunding and the waiting lists – especially amongst young people like my friends. I cannot begin to describe how disheartening it is to see some of your closest friends have to take meds, constantly need picking up, or needing a shoulder to cry on. There is something fundamentally wrong here and the government, or the NHS, or even the governors of this school, need to do something about it.

I sit here and moan about school (which is kind of ironic as I’m writing this on a computer at college) but there are some things that I would never change. There is nothing in the world that I would exchange for the people that I have met by coming here. I think sometimes I sacrificed a little bit of my sanity and probably my grades to a certain extent (as I can’t cope in this high pressure environment), in order to meet some people that I know will truly be friends for life. I don’t think I ever realised how much the people here make a difference to me until I was laying on the desk sobbing on the last day of term, and my friend wrapped her arms around my waist and murmured “I’m so glad you came to CCHS.” 

It has definitely changed me as a person as well. I’ve become better at handling people and now I know how to deal with being a single sex environment, which I never would have known before coming to this school. As cliché as it sounds, I have also met people from more walks of life and that’s always a good experience I think - seeing as much of the world as you can is the only way you’re going to learn anything of value from it. So although I still despise school and hate digging out my transparent pencil case every June, I don’t think I’d change a thing.

where can i bulk buy inspiration

dedicated to regina phalange .x

Things suck. And sometimes, some things suck more than others. Also, more often than not, there are multiple things that suck at one time. But if one thing in life is certain, it is not taxes or death, it is that things suck. I'm watching Midnight in Paris and the main character’s wife is slagging off his desire to become a novelist; and I think that sucks. Let him live his life, he clearly is not satisfied with writing scripts and feels like his calling is novels. A writer like him found inspiration from meeting his dead literary heroes and, although that is not a way we can all find inspiration, I feel that it is a good way to get something in your head that you can’t get rid of until you put pen to paper. I think there are similarities on this side of the cinema screen.  Why do people buy magazines and zines and concert tickets? Yes, to see an artist or read an article, but also to find inspiration of, not necessarily a topic of conversation, but to develop a style. And this style is something that each of us possesses and until you find it you just need to keep looking. One day, maybe while you're buttering your toast or contemplating closing your textbook on you head, you’ll realise what you're meant to do.

The same guy also found that living in Paris gave him inspiration. Although, unable to test the theory properly, I feel like there is probably some truth to this. I thoroughly enjoy going out and just leaving the house (or even my bed on a bad day) provides something to talk about. Because, whatever it is, something’s going to happen to you that day and even if it may be severely unexciting, there may be a funny note pinned up on the notice board, or an extra large piece of carrot cake hidden under the cling film in the corner of the tray. When I'm feeling particularly optimistic I try to keep in mind that every day can lead to an adventure because you never quite know what's going to happen in the next 18 hours, but sometimes I think watching 3 films in one sitting is just as acceptable. Your setting may not always dictate how exciting your writing is or how colourful your drawing is, but as I grow up and travel about a bit (PARIS 2K15), my views on this may change.

Being surrounded by interesting people rather than just delicate flowers or a dirt trail that provide the perfect backdrop to that picture of you r feet, is something that I find endless inspiration from. You can make art about observations of people around you as you grow older and get new friends, from going on a night out, to passing someone in the teal corridors of your college. On occasion I even find something to think about (or rant about) from my twitter feed so, when the older generation slag off my iPhone I take it quite personally. Do you have any idea how hard it is to build up 24,000 tweets or keep in contact with your friends instantly? When you're in each other’s pockets every day for 7 years; is it any shock that we want to retain contact?! But that’s content for an economics essay on the generation divide. Friends (such as the aforementioned regina phalange) are the best people to be around. I feel that, in addition to the m&m’s and the postcards, you can build up a very detailed picture of them all and it’s something I think we all do naturally but is still very unique to us all – and it’s the best way to see the world. There is no one else I’d share my collapsing journal with.

Sometimes you may even get brow beaten into writing a blogpost, but that’s not so bad – you may even write a good one. The fact that someone wants to see what you do is a complement in itself. And I am honestly so grateful that I couldn’t begin to put it into words if I tried.