Photographs and pachyderms

2 weeks between posts? Impossible! Unfathomable! Unheard-of!

Well, as it's the run-up to Christmas (sudden realisation: 3 DAYS?!), everyone's been very busy, myself included. I've made the should-have-been-so-simple journey home...

It was an interesting journey, actually. Our train broke down, so we had to board a second train that would take us two stops so that we could get on a THIRD train that would take us the route we were supposed to go in the first place. I was on the second train, wrestling my unwieldy bag into one of the less crowded corners, when I got talking to a girl called Amy. For once, it wasn't me who initiated the conversation, and I was grateful for someone to talk to.

It turned out that she had come from Cardiff too. She's studying maths at Cardiff uni, and plans to take teacher training. However I suspect that in the 20 minutes we were talking, she found out more about me than I did about her. She found out about my course, my depression, my boyfriend, and which church I'm going to. Apparently she lives just round the corner from me, and occasionally even goes to an event held at my church! Chalk that one down to coincidence, providence, fate, whatever. But it was interesting.

Last Friday was particularly lovely; Gavin always makes it very special when he gives me presents - candles, music, performing bears and the like - and this was no exception. He made a real song and dance out of giving me my present, and rightly so.

I am now the proud and excited owner of a Nikon D40!


The lens I've got is better than the one shown; 18-70mm instead of 18-55. The D40 is the camera everyone has recommended as a good entry-level DSLR. I've spent the past few days trying to familiarise myself with all the buttons. There are a lot of buttons.

It actually took me about a year to find all the functions on my little digital camera, mostly because I never intended to get as interested in it all as I did! I thought it would be fun, a toy; a way to make memories. Instead I ended up wishing I could fiddle with the depth of field... well, I can now.

I haven't taken many photos yet, and very few that are fit for the public to see, but you can always check out my flickr page if you want to see what I've taken recently.

Interesting thing of the day: Achievement Unlocked, a cute and quick little game in which you are an elephant.

A post that possibly includes pineapple and a delusional caterpillar

Good news, everyone!! I am currently ploughing through my last essay of the academic year, after which I will run away to sunny and exotic lands, meet interesting and exotic people, and eat exotic fruits, possibly including pineapple.

By which I mean, I'll go to Cardiff. And then home to the Isle of Wight, at which point I'll begin an arduous five months of living out of boxes because my bedroom has been a building site for the last year and a half. Didn't I only leave home 9 months ago, I hear me ask? Why yes, yes I did.

It's ok. It's part of the natural growing-up process to be bitter about how quickly your parents move on. It's due to the assumption that they don't properly have lives of their own, and only do these things to annoy you.

At any rate, I think I'll be a lot more psychologically healthy when I'm not "stuck in the gap" any more. People warn you about that if you're going on a gap year, getting a feeling of aimless in-between-ness, but my gap year was purposeful and busy and awesome. This year, however, has been rather more... voidish than I would have liked. I'm currently working on deluding myself into believing that the second I leave here I'm going to emerge from my cocoon as a beautiful butterfly... which I imagine will look something like this:

Shalom!

Paris etc

I flew!
From above, France is much neater than England. Going up and coming down was exciting; inbetween that, it felt like my head was being squeezed through a cardboard tube, so I fell asleep.

The apartment was LOVELY. Very small, but very nice, and with a beautiful view! We spent a lot of time in there watching films.

We also walked about a lot, visiting various tourist attractions. We went up the Eiffel Tower more or less on a whim, resulting in two very chilly silly billies. We also saw the Arc de Triumph, the pillar at the Bastille, etc etc.

Films we saw:
The Devil Wears Prada (rubbish, read the book instead) **
Be Kind Rewind (good, nothing special) ***
Juno (very happy; yay!) ****
Chocolat (love it) ****
Silence of the Lambs (classic, pretty enjoyable, plus we got a story about it from the man in the video shop) ****
Black Sheep (possibly the funniest zombie sheep film of the year, enjoyable) ***
Have I forgotten any, Gav?

We ate mostly bread and cheese. 75% healthy, very good.

The journey back took sooo long, I began to get really edgy about going home. Another 3 or more hour journey would have killed me, and I was so tired already from getting up at 6.30am that I started to get all teary. Stupid female hormones, I swear I'm logical really. So Gav, bless him with many blessings, took pity on me and took me in for the night. It was SO good to have a bit of a rest before starting the journey home.

So now I'm with my family, yay! And also boo! Because much as I love them, my health rating has plummeted to 25%. Accursed easter eggs. Mm, if only I could say no...

It's been so wonderful, wandering around my beloved island listening to birds singing and enjoying the sunshine and making friends with the random kitties I find. I'm trying to catch up with whoever's still around, which sadly isn't many of them, but yay! for that.

Photos of my Paris trip are available here (flickr) and here (facebook).

In honour of how beautifully sunny it's been lately, I've bought a dress! Lookit!



And cool new shoes, lookit lookit!



I'll answer your wonderful questions in another post.

Cardiff Bristol Bath etc.

Wow. What an incredible weekend. I'll race through the main points!

Friday: Travelled up early. Gav met me at the station to give me sandwiches, a solar-powered keyring and some cuddles. I love this man!
The interview was easy, I was in there for ten minutes and as long as I pass my first year, I'm in.
So I'm moving to Cardiff.
I'm moving to Cardiff!!!
Then we went out to watch Son of Dave. I met a bunch of Gav's friends, which was ace, and SoD was awesome musically. I freaked out though. Got all claustrophobic; it hardly ever happens, but when it does I would give ANYTHING for people to stop brushing past me. G was a star so I didn't have to run away like last time.

Saturday: Slow start, which was lovely. We watched the rugby, England deservedly thrashed by Scotland, and watched Withnail and I which I'd never seen before.
The Bristol Beatbox heats were awesome!!!!! it was so good to see everyone again! There are photos here if you're interested, which you should be you ungrateful spoon.
Gav and I were on photo duty; he got some truly epic shots with TyTe's digital SLR.
After that, Gav, yasSon and I went back to Mr.T's house and crashed on the floor. It was so wonderful! We got all giggly and went to sleep fairly quickly.

Sunday: I woke up to realise that I'd slowly and steadily inched myself towards Gav, almost pushing him off the mattress. Heheheh. I'm a somnuggler.
His church was awesome. I'm not going to church enough, and it was very touching to be handed the bread by a man I respect so much. I got a bit weepy afterwards.
We had lunch with his family, who are all total stars, and T took us to the station. G and I said goodbye to Yass and got our train - I think I fell asleep on G! I was very good on Sunday night, I let Gavin get his sleep.

Monday: agh, I hate leaving in the morning. No more 8am trains for me. The frantic rush to get everything ready, and the fact that got there 1 minute before the train was due to leave and couldn't find my ticket so I had to buy a new one... gahhh! I'm a student, y'know? It's slightly scary to realise that I'm spending over £100 a month on weekends in Cardiff. On the plus side, when I move there, I'm gonna have more cash than I know what to do with, possibly maybe!

Anyway, it's back to Plymouth and back to work for me. I have an essay to do and three books to read, so I might not update for a bit... take care, all!

I want

...Told him my story. Told him about being laid off in Chicago. Told him about this new job I got in New York. Told him I only knew I got the job officially 5 days before Christmas- only about a week previously. Asked him how he was liking New York.

"It's great," he said. "Everybody's insane with loneliness, but that's OK. After a while you realize that's part of the edge."...
- Hugh McLeod, www.gapingvoid.com

"Imagine a city where graffiti wasn't illegal, a city where everybody could draw wherever they liked. Where every street was awash with a million colours and little phrases. Where standing at a bus stop was never boring. A city that felt like a living breathing thing which belonged to everybody, not just the estate agents and barons of big business. Imagine a city like that and stop leaning against the wall -- it's wet."
- Banksy, www.banksy.co.uk

I want to go to New York and talk to a lonely person.
I want to be happy, and healthy, and helpful, in an environment where those things are positively discouraged.
I want to be able to pick out a busker's guitar chords over the roar of the traffic.
I want to paint beautiful things on ugly walls.
I want to see the adverts for what they are, and to choose to rise above it.

The other day, I was wandering around Bristol train station. It had been dark for hours, and I had a long journey ahead of me. Normally I'd sink into myself, try to avoid any human contact, like anybody would. But for some reason, I was excited. I was interested, curious about everything I saw. I took dozens of photos of the most insignificant things, just happy to be doing something slightly unusual because anybody could ask me about it without feeling uncomfortable. If anyone wanted someone to talk to, they could do a lot worse than starting with "why are you taking all those photos?"

Nobody did, though.

Trains, Aliens, and Nirvana in the bath.

Stupid trains.

I should have been suspicious when every train around us was being delayed and having platform changes, but our faithful little train to Cardiff stayed rock steady... I should have realised then. It was cancelled. And the next train to Cardiff was half an hour late. Grrrr, stupid trains... so I missed the concert we were going to see, which I feel bad about because my boy could have gone but instead he was cooking for me and such.
(Side note: the 'insert picture' button didn't work, so I did that with my newfound knowledge of HTML. That's how badass I am.)

I had so much fun dancing with my boy... I haven't done that since that festival (vaguely referred to here, it was wonderful). There's a lovely picture of us doing the aforementioned here, YAY!

Saturday was similarly awesome, we saw Alien vs. Predator: Requiem which was pretty much new territory for me, but I actually really enjoyed it! (It was my idea, he didn't bully me into it.) Then we went out to a gorgeous Italian restaurant that he's been wanting to show me for ages, which was absolutely amazing (although sushi still wins).

On Sunday, we were both too tired for church in the morning, which was really a shame. Never mind, next time. And he showed me how to do interesting techie things with a nitfy little firefox addon called Firebug. I was surprisingly clued up :) SMUG.

Everything got a bit chaotic towards the end, stupid taxi company sent me two so I thought it was about to drive off without me, meh anyway.

It was about time too, hadn't seen my boy in weeks.

Don't worry, as soon as I start doing other interesting things I'll blog about them as well!

Curiosity

Those of you know know me well know that I'm cursed with an epic curiosity. The kind of curiosity that could wipe out the entire feline race, God forbid. Those who know me very well know that this is apparently very amusing to exploit, by letting me know that there's something to know... and then not telling me it.

My boy did this to me last night, curse his smug sockses, by very pointedly telling me he was emailing someone, and then laughing until I entered "Curiosity mode". Which goes sort of like this: "Oh go on, tell me! Please tell me? Fine then, don't tell me, I don't care anyway.

...

YOU'RE SO FREAKIN' MEAN!"

He was even more exasperating today (which I don't mind, some exasperation can actually be fun), laughing - no, giggling - while I begged him to tell me what was going on. Turns out the email was to a friend asking if we could borrow an apartment in the Spring... so... apparently we're flying to Paris. Actual Paris, the actual Paris in France.

So, y'know. I let him off this time.

Plans for Festivus

It's amazing how much I've missed in the short time I've been away. All the drama continued without me, only (according to my sources) worse because I wasn't there to calm everyone down! I completely believe it. But I say that without a trace of arrogance, because if I was really that great I'd have taught them to be sensible for themselves. Never mind, I'm sure they'll sort it out, and everyone will be talking to everyone else again in no time.

In case I don't have time to update the blog over the coming few days, this is the plan: my boy comes down to the Isle of Wight tomorrow afternoon, we will go for a meal with my friends from school on Saturday, we'll head up to his family on Sunday, spend Christmas there, go up to his friends for New Year's, then I'll come back here and then return to Plymouth. I'd much rather not go back to Plymouth.
Not because it sucks, just because I still don't belong there. Meh, never mind.

Still! Thank goodness I'm seeing my boy soon, been missing him like CRAZY. It has been... 2 1/2 weeks? My gosh. That's not really very long, although it certainly feels it. Long distance relationships are hard... it would only be worth it for him.

Interesting Thing Of The Day: The procrastination flowchart.

Bristol and such!

I was standing in Bristol in the pouring rain, in a circle of people I've met once or not at all (and one I know almost as well as myself), making odd noises with my mouth. And just as I started to get privately proud of my bass sounds (pretty deep for a lass, I think), I suddenly thought "I wonder what Nana would think of all this."
My mum's mother died years ago, when I was about eleven I think, and sometimes I regret that I never really knew her. Don't get me wrong, we weren't estranged; after my parents, she's probably the person my siblings and I spent most of our formative years with; but to be completely honest I didn't realise until I was about 12 that adults were more than just a complicated combination of times I got my way and times I didn't. As a result, my impression of her is one of a very genteel and caring woman whose house had Rules, and I haven't got the faintest idea what she would think of things.
I think she wouldn't approve that I keep dropping my T's. Even I don't approve of that.As for beatboxing, would she be completely baffled at what I saw in it, or would she want to know all about it? I wouldn't fancy trying to persuade her that it's ok to meet a group of strange men from the internet, but in this case (NOT in all cases, it is important to feel safe) I knew it was a good idea.I know she'd be thrilled about Gavin. she'd absolutely LOVE him, which is a wonderful thing to realise actually.
The beatboxing jam was amazing though, I'm so glad I went! I'd genuinely missed a few of those guys, and was very glad to meet the others, and i was NOT LAME and actually did some beatboxing (very quietly!) which is Most Pleasing and earned me a pack of peanut M&Ms that I shared. Bribery FTW.
The rest of the night consisted mainly of pubbing with the lads, cuddling my boy, hurting my poor little ankle, deciding going back to Plymouth would be ass, and going to Cardiff instead. So I actually came back on Sunday. Four hours of travel, two changes, over an hour on a packed bus, and then I had to walk back to the house on the aforementioned poor little ankle.
The best thing about this weekend is that no matter what happens from here, I have memories that I know are going to bring me a lot of joy and will stay with me forever.

What makes you free?

If you were snatched up from wherever you are and dropped in an infinite featureless plain, would you technically be imprisoned?

Think about that for a second.

What if there was stuff on this plain, trees and such. Is it still a prison? If so, what makes it so?

Maybe it's prison when you can't get home... but then you can be imprisoned in your home. Maybe it's a prison when you can't get where you want to be. I'd feel trapped if I couldn't travel to my home or to Cardiff. Or to beatboxing events. You know what, the sooner my NUS student card comes through, the better - I'll get rail discounts, which apparently in my head equates to more freedom.

What makes you free? Would would count as a prison to you?

ITOTD: I could spend hours doing this.

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.

Meet the parents

It's an uncanny truth that whenever I meet up with my boy, we have at least one day of brilliant sunshine (which is no small thing, in a summer this relentlessly dismal.) Granted, we met in summer which doubtless carries an advantage, but it's nevertheless gratifying to remember all the moments we've spent together on warm days under blue skies. I'm pretty sure I photosynthesise too, so it feels very Right.

Every time I stand at a train station looking out for him, I get hideously nervous for a few seconds. When I spot him I tend to be glad to see him, terrified, and thoroughly knackered and bored of travelling - and this manifests itself in me walking hesitantly towards him with an awkward smile on my face. Every time. And every time, it's not until the mercifully immediate First Hug that the tension dissipates; then I'm just there, in his arms, almost oblivious to the busy surroundings.

Yes, it's going to be a soppy post. I'm in love, deal with it.

(At this point the author pauses, fingers motionless over the keyboard, as she tries to deal with the significance of what she just wrote. It's all too much for her poor little mind, so she thinks about ponies until it goes away.)

I went on Friday and met his parents, who are thoroughly lovely, and watched the Blues Brothers on the sofa with him. Never seen it before, it was good!

Best quote:
ELWOOD - It's 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses.
JAKE - Hit it!

On Saturday we went to Hull to attend his friend's album launch, which was obviously very important since Girlfriend Approval Papers were required, but I passed apparently so that's alright. ;) They had kitties! Who were all fluffy! It was a bit of a trek away but we managed alright, despite train delays and cock-ups. (I'm thinking of making a little wax train that I can stick needles in whenever there's a problem, but I know it would only take three trips before the thing would be so full of holes you could use it as a Matrix sequel.) But we made it back to Birmingham in the end for a proper family meal, which was properly fun. Always good to see your Significant Other with his family, isn't it. This time it was anyway.

After that, we went to the pub to see some of his boys! I got talking to one of them about God, who may have forgotten most of it. Luckily. I mean it's not really pub talk is it. Still, it was great getting to know the lads a bit, I did pretty well at being friendly but totally failed at the knowing stuff. They were talking about music and techie stuff, so I just stood there smiling vacantly and trying not to feel like a bimbo! (See? I would NEVER have used that word about myself before my hair turned blonde. It's affecting my self-image.)

Monday I came home, travelling went very well despite another train delay at the start.

The entire weekend was suffused with general huglyness and cuddletivity, and I can honestly say that I have never been so completely comfortable with someone as I am with him.

It's all looking good, guys! And although I did get a bit mournful in the car on the way to the station, I'm not feeling too lonely. It won't be long before I talk to him again. So... yay, and stuff.

This has been the smuggest post in history, hasn't it... I am sorry, people. But those of you who know me well know that this doesn't happen often (i.e. EVER) to me, and is thus a deal of the big kind.

Ok, ok, blatant gloating time is over. Love to y'all. x

Brighton and drama

Hello! And welcome to IssueFest 2007, we'd thank you to leave your common sense at the door. Please take a seat, sit back, and enjoy the trauma...

The thing about keeping a blog is that there's two very conflicting motivations. On the one hand, I want to record everything for posterity and be completely honest with my audience. On the other, discretion is very much an issue.

Some people will tell you everything, will even conduct their lives via their blog. Others won't tell you where they work, or even their name, remaining completely anonymous. I tend to be fairly open as far as that stuff goes, and I only stop short of telling secrets that aren't mine.

Discretion and honesty is a difficult balance to keep in every walk of life. It seems that lately I've strayed too far towards keeping my mouth shut when perhaps I should be more up-front, and I may have hurt someone badly through that.

So I apologise for not being more detailed in my summary of where I've been, but the following I can tell you: the Brighton Battlejam was amazing, life's ups and downs continue like a boat on rough waters, and I remain (as ever) cautiously optimistic.

B t B t

Ok ok ok I know, terribly slack of me, but I'm here now and ready to bore you senseless with more beatbox-related shenanigans!

Last Friday (the 8th), I went up to London to witness the 2007 UK Beatboxing Championships. I got collected in Portsmouth by the incredibly sweet Fat Tony, who came and looked after me even though trains are evil, and whom I've been wanting to meet for ... oooh, weeks. Months. Once in London, we picked up Philippic (who is an absolute sweetie) and wandered around Angel Islington trying to find Grace (Bellatrix's friend). Bear with me, the names might get confusing, especially since everyone has two. We found Grace in the end, and went back to loitering outside the venue.

Y'see, everyone was going to arrive at 5, so we got there early. Quite early. Well, very. And we waited outside as people pointed and whispered (Tony was dressed as Russell Brand, it's a look that certainly gets a lot of attention!) After a while, BeatMuppet, YasSon, etc. all turned up from booking a room at the Generator (the hostel we were to spend the night in). Then everyone turned up.
Everyone.
All the people I had been so nervous of meeting, and a few it hadn't even occurred to me I might meet! Shlomo, the Petebox, TyTe, Bellatrix, Hobbit, some incredibly talented people. I don't think I was too star-struck, maybe I went a bit quiet at first but it soon passed, simply because they're all such awesome people.

The London finals started two hours later than expected, which was cool as I got bonus time to talk to people and get hugs ;) and they rocked. I could honestly not believe the skill in that room. I was hanging around with Phil and Tony feeling way less awkward than I expected to, and loving every minute of it!

Then came the UK finals, held in a packed club. Shlomo's set was every bit as good as Tony had promised it would be. Scratch's was awful, there was some pretty heavy distortion, but after that came the finals...

Fozzie shouldn't have gone out that early if he's as good as BM swears he is. He paced himself wrong, held a lot back for the next rounds which sadly never came. BM was not a happy bunny. Or indeed a happy mammal of any description.

The semifinals between Bella and Beardyman were absolutely genius, very entertaining dynamics going on there! (Bella's 18, win the for?! Truly amazing skill.)

Now, don't get me wrong, the championships were legendary (Beardyman won, naturally), but that wasn't the best part. The best part started afterwards. BM was trying to round up everyone so that we could get back to the Generator, but leaving is never that easy, especially when a few members of the party have been drinking. He had to physically carry Brown out of the club twice while YasSon looked for his bag and fished some Tea Tree oil out of his pint.

The journey back was entertaining to say the least, I alternated between shepherding along the slightly unsteadier people and talking to BM and TyTe.

Ok, all of you know how much I've been going on about TyTe. Well don't expect to hear the end of it any time soon because he's LOVELY, a truly stellar man and a legend in the flesh. Good hugger too. And friendly. He TALKED to me. (And I talked back, don't get the impression I was just stood there going "Heehee... you're TyTe, you are", no, I was just fine thankyou.) Then he left, because he had to be alive for the next day...
And as for BeatMuppet... well. He's a Christian, the most physical beatboxer I've seen, he likes Discworld, and recommended Velvet Elvis to me, and threatened to improve my vocabulary (can you believe it!) AS WELL as being a computer geek. So, you know, it was good to talk to him.
UPDATE! Enough time has now passed that I can clarify: "it was good to talk to him" means "he is My Type in every way that matters, and I developed a fun crush on him more or less instantly."

We got to the Generator at about 4am, it was getting light already and we were all knackered... especially poor Hobbit. He'd been performing on stage, and had to be up at 7, so he was quite keen to get to sleep. Nobody else was. It just wasn't happening. The constant stream of innuendo regarding bottles, cucumbers, and even Zippy (who never sounded that perverted before) were enough to keep me laughing till I cried. A truly awesome night.

I'm missing out so much here but I'll try to keep it short. The next day we got kicked out at 10 and all went our separate ways by tube and train; Yas, Yas's friend whose name I feel bad for not remembering, Tony and I caught the same train back and talked all the way. Yas is a sweetheart. In the end, I hugged Tony goodbye, and went home... knackered, but happy.

And, just because I haven't mentioned them yet, I'd like to say how great it was to meet Bevis, Typerite, Vig, Skitz, Magda, and argh I've forgotten her name, the one with the gorgeous hair.

They were all lovely, I will most definitely be meeting them again, and I've been staying in touch with BM because he's way awesome.

So that is it! That is what I did with my weekend! That is what I've been hyped about ever since! And five gold reader stars if you actually got this far, well done you.

Oxford, Sleepover, Pub, and Dirty Dancing.

See the title for this post? See what happens when I'm gone for three days? DO YOU SEE?!

Some of you have been expecting me to talk about Tuesday for some time now, and I'm very sorry for not updating you all sooner, but as you see things have been fairly hectic.

So! Oxford. I went (all by myself) on the ferry and then the train (like a big girl) to Oxford, and I was freaking TERRIFIED. The train would take only two minutes between stations until we got near my stop, then suddenly it was draaaagging ooouut... and then the train inexplicably started going BACKWARDS.
As I got closer to my destination I got jumpier, edgier, fidgetier - fortunately not enough to become too conspicuous, I hope. At one point I started worrying because I'd gone so pale that my skin was actually blue, before realising that the train's windows were actually tinted slightly; that was a relief.

SO ANYWAY after that I actually went out of the station and saw him. Right there. Dave. Without a screen between us, or indeed anywhere in sight, there he was and there I was and... what now?
Well what happened next was we talked, and hugged (which he'd told me not to do straight away but changed his mind about), we got food, we went for a walk, sat in the park, talked, hugged (slightly awkwardly at first, then I relaxed a bit). We caught the bus back to his house, blur, blur, hugging, cat, blur, watched memento, blur, hugging (uhgahbuh), blur, dinner, home...

Yes, yes, I know. I can't remember a lot of it, not in detail anyway, because of the combination of nerves and excitement and hugging and not having a fantastic memory anyway. But I hope it's enough to say that it was truly awesome, that everybody I met was lovely and fun and generally great. In fact while I'm here, thank you, guys, you made me feel really welcome. Everybody go ahhhhh.

It wasn't until I was headed home that I started to worry about the fact that I'm an emotionally stunted wreck who may not even be capable of entering a real relationship, let alone sustaining one, but we'll brush over that.

I didn't get home until gone midnight, and by then I was too tired to blog, sorry guys. I should have done it the next morning, but I hadn't anticipated just how mad the next few days were going to be...

Wednesday: I went over to Dom's and played Kingdom Hearts 2. Awesome game. Haven't played it in months because her rabbit ate the wire. Steve (my honorary big brother) came over. Dave was sad. That made me sad, and worried, and guilty, but things got better. I think.

Thursday: Played Kingdom Hearts. Steve came over. I went to the pub for open mic night, which was awesome, and came back to Dom's smelling of smoke (so I refused to inflict that smell on her and slept in the living room that night).

Friday: Dom ran me a bubbly bubble bath! Hooray! Played KH. (Okay, maybe it was less manic than it felt, but I still had a truly awesome time. Dom is lovely.) Thennnn we went to a girly night with some of the cell group girls, we watched Dirty Dancing and had snacks, painted nails, etc. while the guys did guy things.
What guy things? Well, we found them running around outside Naomi's house with clingfilm, sellotape and beer.

In conclusion: much awesomeness has occurred. Much of which I'm sure I've forgotten just at the moment, but never mind.

Ooh, also I've dyed my eyelashes black for some reason, which I didn't know you could do. Apparently you can. *Flutters eyelashes*

Oh Em Gee, WALES!

So, I'm back from Wales. Please excuse the net-kid excitement in the title, I just felt it was necessary for some reason.

At this point I realise that "I'm back from Wales!" has no impact since you probably didn't know I'd gone. So here follows my reason for going in the first place.

It was the annual YFC staff conference! I was staying in a hotel in a Welsh castle! And again with the exclamation marks! Anyway, basically I've spent five days with the coolest people known to man. So many people don't realise this, but honestly, your average Christian is pretty darn cool. On the last night, a worship session sort of morphed into a disco - not entirely sure how - and I was truly struck with the awesomeness of the other young Christians there. Seriously, they could sing, play a million instruments each, and dance like you wouldn't believe! A couple of the guys and gals there were legendary breakdancers, and of course there were the ones who were just willing to go do it, however stupid it might have looked. Which it didn't.

So, today I had to come home. I mean, I wanted to, of course, but there's something so special about getting away from it all to focus on God that I really didn't want to let go of. And on the way home, riding in the front seat of my boss / co-worker / friend's car, I had a sudden freak-out moment. I was shouting

"ABINGDON!!! Dave, look, ABINGDON!! Can we go? Can we? Please!! Oh please, look we're ahead of time..."

Dave understood, of course, because I'd already told him about my Dave from Abingdon, but he still said no... smelly Dave. (I know. How inconvenient that they have the same name. Well you're just gonna have to put up with it, sorry.) Anyway, basically, he's cool with my 'internet friend' - I could tell because he was mocking me for it, which he wouldn't have done if he was worried. And boy did he mock me for it. Because, of course, however sensible you are and however real a relationship is, when a normal (non-internet-obsessed) person says "Anna met some guy on the internet", it sounds bad. C'est la vie.

Back to the subject! How was Wales? Windy and grey. Windy I was fine with, I find it invigorating (even though it dries out my skin like nobody's business, as if you care), but grey I wasn't. I'd started to get a tad SAD-ish by the end of the week.

Fascinating factoid (the "oid" indicating that it's something like a fact, but not): Stilton was created by Stan himself.

STAN ->

WHY oh WHY is the internet being so SLOW? It makes me want to cry, it really does. Well no it doesn't, but you see what I mean. WORK, DARN YOU.

Which is about bombs, Guildford and two chance encounters.

As you are all no doubt aware, Thursday saw some scary stuff. Four bombs; three on the underground and one on the no. 30 bus. I heard all this when I was at school, and it terrified me; my sister works there. So I got home as quickly as possible, praying like crazy that she would be ok. I got in to find a message on the answerphone, "Don't worry, I'm fine..." I missed the rest, I was just so relieved to hear those words. "I'm fine"; thank God. Then mum came in the door telling me that my sister and my aunt were both ok. It's near enough to a miracle; my sister was ill that morning, otherwise she might have been there. It's a scary thought. And my aunt, Sarah, goes that way most days; about one day a fortnight she doesn't take that route, and thank God that was Thursday. That left me pretty rattled. I still can't believe it. Most importantly, I can't think of who did it. I'm treating it in my mind like a natural disaster, like the tsunami; something you can't hate and can't get angry at. I just can't begin to understand people doing this; it doesn't make sense.

Friday was interesting too. I was going to go midnight shopping, but it never happened; instead we just hung around outside Bogeys talking to people and trying to make decisions. I mentioned my stress the previous day over my sister, and the guy I was talking to (Rob) said "Who, Naomi?" I said "Yeah, ... hang on..." and then I said the words I've said so many times: "How do you know my sister?" Turns out they knew each other at school, and worked together on Romeo and Juliet. I remember seeing that; he was Parras. I was 13 at the time. Dude, that's trippy.

Saturday, we went to Guildford. Hoorah! Sunny and exotic Guildford! That's what I always call it when other people are talking about what Caribbean islands they've been to. They think I'm kidding. But seriously, once again the weather was utterly perfect for us, sunshine all weekend. Anyway, we were there for my aunt's (Rebecca this time) birthday party. It was brilliant! We played an embarrasing game called musical newspaper, which is great fun. When the music stops you have to stand on scraps of newspaper that get smaller each time... it's difficult to remain aloof when you're clinging on to a random stranger's waist for support. And the music
was brilliant; we were dancing for hours, utterly crazy stuff. And our new uncle Hugh (11 months now, but he's still the newest one we've got) was breakdancing truly brilliantly. I swear, I still don't know how it's physically possible to jump in slow motion, but he did it. And he sang to Rebecca. Ahhhhhh.

The next day is today; we went to their church (which I nearly fell asleep in repeatedly), then it was a few more hours at Rebs and Hugh's place, then we went home. Oh, and I told Naomi about Rob. She told me... some stuff... and to say hi. On the ferry home, my imagination was doing the strange. I was doing "what-ifs" in my head, including what if Matt was on this boat? I knew he was coming back to the island any day now. But that was a one in a hundred chance, so I didn't pursue that too far.

Then I saw somebody who looked like Matt's brother Jonathan. My train of thought went as follows:
Hey, he looks like Jonathan.
What would he be doing here? Can't be.
That looks like Mr. Reading.
And that, as far as I can remember, looks like their mum.It's definitely them.Therefore, that is the back of Matt's head.
Help. What do I do?!

I have heard that "what-ifs" are meant to prepare us for stuff that might happen, but it all seemed a bit far-fetched. Well, there ya go. It was nice to have a quick chat with him, anyway.

But anyway, I have been in so many situations like that that just make the world feel so tiny. Everybody knows everybody else! I can't meet one random person (i.e. Rob) without there being at least one connection to somebody else I know.I should be used to it by now, really.

Also, I can't believe I fancy a guy who was in school with my sister and has a kid.

TODAY'S WISDOM: The problem nowadays is that if you tell somebody that television rots their brain, they'll say "You know, you're right!" and then they'll change the channel.