THE WORLD'S GONNA EN- oh no it's okay

Y'know, I now understand why emo-kids all have livejournals full of their depressing thoughts*. I have had an absolute shitter of a day, pardon my Klatchian, and my first response is "oh em gee I gotta blog this ish right here."

HERE FOLLOWS
THE TRUE AND EXTRAORDINARY EXPLOITS
OF ONE MISS ANNA FRUEN

So, today was the day I was supposed to get my results. I failed one module of my first year at Plymouth university, and I had to retake it to transfer. It was vitally important that I get those results before Monday because THAT, dear reader, is the day I register at UWIC, my new uni.

However.

They couldn't give me the results over the phone.
I couldn't access the student intranet because they've taken me off the system.
It had not yet arrived at my home address on the Isle of Wight because they were only sent off today.

This took many, many phone calls to Plymouth and to home to ascertain.

STRESSFUL!

I was left, panicking and tearful, to explain to Gavin and my parents why everything had gone so horribly, horribly wrong...

Until just now. Gav called. He said that he'd phoned UWIC, talked to K who's been helping me through the transfer (and thus deserves a medal), and found out the following:

a) I don't register, technically, until Thursday
b) Even if I've failed they can work around that
c) They've had a bunch of transfer students like me and it's all gone fine with them
d) They've found a tutor group that goes well with my "lively debate" style of learning
e) It's all gonna be ok and I can allow my blood pressure to subside to the point where it's not trickling out of my ears.

I therefore nominate Gavin and K for 'best people of the month' awards. Thank you SO SO SO MUCH!

I know it's difficult to follow this post - the life-saving phone call came partway through, so it's a bit jumbled - but all you have to do is say "Oh well done, thank goodness" or words to that effect.

*Sweeping generalisations. They're always right.

A dinner party in a car park

Yesterday, walking back from university, I was greeted with the sight of a group of people, dressed up very nicely, having a dinner party in the middle of a car park. They invited me to join them, so I did. They gave me lemonade and apologised that the pizza wasn't there yet. They asked me about myself; who I am, where I'm going. There's something nicely concise about explaining yourself in thirty seconds, as if you're left with a better idea of things than when you started.

They recited a traditional Celtic toast for me to celebrate my coming move to Cardiff.

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again,
may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Plymouth is a place of hills and uneven roads, cracked pavements and slippery slabs.
Wind enlivens me like nothing else, almost convincing me that I could fly if I tried.
I long for the summer, for the warmth and joy of a sunny day.
I have noticed recently more than ever the soft, earthy smell of freshly-rained on ground.
And nothing, nothing in this world, makes me happier, happy to the point of tears, happy to distraction and beyond all reason, than the feeling of being in God's hand.

It was a strange event, them sitting there in their elegant outfits, me in my jumper and jeans. But there's something so right about seizing the moment. May we all learn the courage to do so more often.

Mobular Telephonium - aka Phone Rage

In a letter to the Independent last week, Ashley Martin wrote: “Congratulations to the scientists who have developed technology that enables mobile phones to be used under water. Perhaps they could now invent technology that enables mobile phones to be used in north Norfolk.”

I'd like to propose the same technology to be trialled in Plymouth. Please. I'm remarkably patient about the terrible signal, considering what it does. Which is the following.

Incoming calls:
It rings, I answer the phone. I can't hear you. The signal cuts out. You ring again, and again, and again, until finally I have some signal and the call connects. Then it's (mostly) fine.

Outgoing calls:
Oh, it didn't work. No signal.
Oh, it didn't work again. Wait until I have signal.
ONE BAR!! GO GO GO!
...
No bars. Dammit.
Repeat until it finally goes through and pray to God that it holds while I get the Very Important Information / soothing noises that I so sorely need.

My service provider, three, actually called me once, miraculously getting through for long enough to ask how happy I was with their service. You can bet the signal got 'mentioned'.

Honestly though I think it's harder on other people than it is on me. Months and months of a crash-happy laptop have taught me to be supremely patient with flaky technology.

And while I'm complaining about this, because heavens help me I'm getting so good at complaining that it seems a shame to stop now, my phone's camera is broken. Every time I try to take a picture or video, it crashes my phone and I have to turn it off and on again. That would never have happened to my 3310 (for the obvious reasons that it only has two buttons, "stop" and "go"). I honestly think I'll get one of those fabulously retro beauties next time I buy a phone.

Interesting thing of the day: Spy Phones. Utter genius. Highly immoral of course.

Jeffers, my Boy, and Technical Difficulties

The sky broadband at our student house, unreliable at the best of times, finally broke completely last week. We're trying to get it sorted; unfortunately, this makes no difference to me since my laptop's finally given up for good. It's been hopelessly crash-tastic for a long time, and my techy did the decent thing and put it out of its misery. ;)

Thank God for university computers.

So it's been a wonderful few days! My boy came down for the weekend, we went to see Pendulum, we explored Plymouth looking for a cinema (trickier than you'd think when the maps don't have a You Are Here), watched TV with my housemates, made (burned) lasagne, ate jelly and ice cream (two colours of jelly, OGM!) and went to Mutley Baptist which earned a thumbs-up from Gavin.

I'll be seeing him again this weekend... my gosh, I'm terrified. It's a beatboxing jam in Bristol. WARGH. This is the first time I'll be meeting these guys in a situation where I might be reasonably expected to actually make some sounds with my actual mouth. :S STILL, what's the worst that could happen! ...

I evicted Jeffers on Friday. I didn't want to. Michelle came upstairs and said "ANNA I think Jeffers is in the recycling, I was wondering if you could..." So I obliged, went downstairs and moved cardboard boxes around until I found him tucked inside a Fab box (remember those? David's been buying loads of them lately). I then, VERY reluctantly, took the box outside, had one last look at his tiny whiskery adorableness, and sent him running off up the road.

Which I then proceeded to feel very very guilty about for two days, until Gav told me that he'd seen a mouse in the kitchen. I saw him yesterday too, Jeffers is officially still with us. (Ok, maybe it's another mouse, but this way I don't have to picture Jeffers dying of hypothermia in a coke can.)

Anyway! Hope everyone's ok, there should be more to come soon, although how soon I don't know. Don't suppose any of you have got a computer you don't need...?

Johnny the rugby-tackling alzheimer's patient

Right, I've decided to be a bit more frequent with my blog updates. I don't feel that I've got that much to say, but as we all know it's the quantity and not the quality that counts.

I have spent most of my life with tragically low self-esteem. I was, socially, a wasteland throughout my childhood - hopeless with other kids, introverted, intelligent, and convinced that I was ugly. I am by no means unique in this respect. A lot of people start out that way.

The past few years have consisted of me discovering that I'm more than that. I learned how to win people over with the bare minimum of effort (hint: be interested in them!), I put the books down and started talking to people, and I found out that I'm not Quasimodo's ugly step-sister.

I'm missing my gap year like crazy. The combination of responsibility and freedom was perfect for me; the feeling of doing something practically to help, talking to people about their problems, leading discussion groups, it was just right to push me to the next stage. I grew in confidence over that year, no doubt about it.

And now, to cap it all off, I'm loved in a way I never expected and sure as hell never deserved.

I am having quite a wobbly start at university. I'm being shy and introverted, and because of the nature of my course I'm doing a lot of reading, and I'm scared to get into the church side of things and not really sure how to go about it. But I'm not going to lose sight of who I am now; change in character is a one-way process from my experience and I'm glad of that because I really, genuinely liked who I was in my gap year. I hope and pray to have the guts to be that person here in Plymouth.

Interesting thing of the day: Plug your webcam in!

I remember now!

Ohhh yeah! I'm Anna! Born and raised on the Isle of Wight, good with people, slightly naive, idealistic. Child of God (so if you mess with me... ;) ). Very empathic, well-meaning but lazy, I love sunshine and my boys. I like words. I'm good with words.

If I'm in Plymouth, I have a reason to be here and a right to be here. These are the things I realised on the way home today. That's why I have once again started walking around like I own these streets.

They say university is about finding your identity, working out who you are. It seems a bit of a shame to get it over with in the first two months, so I'm sure I'll forget and remember who I am a fair few times before I'm done. Such is life. But I am SO GLAD to be more sure of myself. I swear, the second it clicked, I started walking differently. I walked like I owned the place on the Isle of Wight, but why should here be any different?

In the words of Churchill.... OhhhhYES.

Plymouth and Exeter with my boy

WOOHOO! What a fantastic weekend. I've missed my boy SO much, it was wonderful to see him again. Right from when I got hold of him at the station and we just stood there for a good few minutes just being so glad to be together again.

I made a complete hash of cooking on Friday night, fortunately my boy stepped in and saved me from myself. I almost violated rule 1!* Then we went out for drinks to a lovely little pub that I'm quite fond of, it's a proper one with lots of green and red and wood and things stuck on the walls. There was a band playing and I was extremely happy.

Saturday was totally fantastic, we took the train to Exeter to meet Tyte. (If you don't know who he is by now, please pay attention!) We were wandering around Exeter cathedral for a few minutes, marvelling at the masonry and stained glass windows and such (I don't marvel often, but it was totally marvelworthy). We had just gone outside again, and Gav was saying that we'd find him soon, and just as we kissed we hard someone yelling "OI! Stop that you two!"

We went to a brilliant little Italian restaurant, where I did my usual thing of not finishing my meal and feeling hideously guilty and annoyed because it was actually really nice. And it was so, so lovely to see him again, and to chat to him about everything. He had a wonderful weekend, bless him, which I was very glad to hear. Then we wandered around for a while in a desperate search for a pub that might conceivably be showing the rugby! (Oh yeah, I'm into the rugby now. So much more fun to watch than football.) We had obviously stumbled into a fairly upmarket area of Exeter because it was all coffee bars and such, but we eventually found a great pub to watch the game in. We beat Australia, this is because we are AWESOME.

On the way back, my boy taught me some beatboxing - because as involved as I am in the community, and as much as I love it, I'm still utterly rubbish and REALLY need to practise. It's astonishing how shy I was about beatboxing in front of Gav.

Then we took the train back to Plymouth (I left my Bees hat on the train, wahh). We then... did nothing... then on Sunday... we did some more nothing. Oh but there was cooking. Although Gav relegated me to washing up at one point because the kitchen was too small for two cooks... ;) that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

I was gutted to have to say goodbye, of course, but I'm feeling a lot better than I was this time two weeks ago. Having satisfied my cravings, I'm working out when I can next go up to Cardiff.

I went to the church that I was invited to on Sunday night, which was lovely and very very much needed. Today has been good, I've been wandering around beatboxing atrociously and enjoying it a lot.

*Gav made some rules for the Anners. Rule 1 is: no going on fire. Rule 2 is: Anners may has hugs. Rule 3: Gavs may also has hugs.