Monday, 27 February 2012

Friday, 17 February 2012

Channel Hopping

So, I wrote a piece about my different emotional responses to the prospect of moving abroad for a year, and the lovely people over at Opinion Panel have published it in their community blogging section.
As plenty of time has now passed I've also included said article here, so, enjoy!

Now don’t get me wrong, I was fully aware when I signed up for this French degree that I was going to be spending a year abroad in France, with people who speak it all the time, think in it, dream in it, and have done since it was their first word, but now it’s a matter of months away it’s all sort of hitting me. Right in the face. Like a giant baguette. The prospect of travelling to a foreign country is filled with promise and excitement, but the concept of actually moving there, on my own, for an entire year, is tainted brown with more than a little terror.
I’ve studied French for more years than I actually care to remember, and there is now an entire French section on my bookshelves, filled with everything from Madame Bovary, to L’Histoire de France Pour Les Nuls, but that alone is just not going to cut it. It’s possible to read about and study something to within an inch of its entire concept, but in reality the leap from page to practice is a giant one.
Tell anyone you study a language at any level, and they will immediately regale you with a (mercifully) potted history of their entire experience of any language ever, and then expect you to know the answer to any and every obscure conjugation question they’ve ever pretended to care about. And that’s before producing some member of their family who just so happens to be visiting from France/Germany/Spain/Lithuania (delete as appropriate) and would simply love to converse with you at such a level of fluency, and such a frequency of words, that only a particularly adept foreign dog could respond with any level of coherence or sense. Simply put; I’ve been researching the characteristics of selective mutism, just in case. I’m of course aware that thousands of University students go abroad every single year, and more importantly come back alive, but it hasn’t stopped me wincing at the merest whiff of garlic, and having pre-emptive flashbacks at the briefest sight of stripy-chested men on bicycles with strings of onion round their necks. (More common in South-Westerly England than you might think).
As inevitable as the tides, I will go, I will survive, maybe even excel, and then I will return, with a wealth of self-discovery and personal growth under my belt, and an acquired taste for escargots. In spite of the fact I made it this far without a snail joke, (remarkable, I know) you may have noticed that I’m still trying not to take the inevitable too seriously, in the vain hope that I can laugh my way across the channel in as smooth, and calm a motion as possible, to avoid spending the next year sat in a corner rocking back and forth muttering the Marseillaise in order to try and fit in.
I’ll be fine; I know. It’s going to be an incredible year of discovery and fulfilment, just with the subtitles switched off, and the capacity for living cranked all the way up to 11. Oh, and if I do in fact fall flat on my visage, it is only a matter of 12 months, 52 weeks, or even 365 days, and when it’s all over I can come crawling back to this fair isle; tail between my legs and yesterday’s frog legs still between my teeth.

Monday, 30 January 2012

Paddon Award Entry

This is my entry to the Paddon Award, in association with the University of Exeter, under the brief "Your Exeter, Your University."
Edit: I wasn't shortlisted, but I'm still proud of the piece, and still feel very strongly about the brief, and Exeter itself, so please keep reading it.


My Exeter, My University, My Home


“Oh Exeter, is wonderful.”
At first it seems strange that what was introduced to me as a fiercely proud football chant should so acutely and accurately sum up my feelings towards this outstanding institution, especially as an avid avoider of almost all things sporting, but then it occurs to me how much my eyes, mind and heart have been opened to so many new experiences in my time here, and it almost seems fitting.
On an entirely superficial level the sheer, breath-taking beauty of both campus and the surrounding city inspire me on an almost daily basis, but the true impact of such accessible splendour runs far deeper. The seamless, constant harmony of pastures new, and old stomping grounds; the constant revolution of new souls, new prospects, and entire futures, with the University a hub of innovation and creativity that stands proudly above the skyline; a beacon of past, present and future in perfect equilibrium. Even on the greyest of Devon days this most extraordinary of places shimmers with possibility, and the constant hum of innovation and progression can always be heard, if you just take the time to stop and listen.
The notion of taking an institution to your heart, of feeling like you belong, seems at best a superficial one, but I can honestly say that Exeter and its essence of strength now pulse through my veins. As the Exe ebbs and flows, so university life meanders through highs, lows and extremes of existence, but the constant comfort of inevitable tidal regularity and stability, like that of the pillar of strength and celebrated creativity that is this institution, even in the darkest of times shines the light of guidance and reassurance in to all corners of life, perhaps most notably as a string of lights in the shape of a Christmas tree atop the physics building during the festive season.
The life-blood of regeneration undulates throughout this city, but it never seeks to wash away those people and things that it has already encountered. I know that I will always feel welcome here, as those who have already moved on do, and that in the inevitable story of my life, the chapter marked Exeter will be a full and vibrant one. That said, should the opportunity to plant roots here present itself, I shall be the first with wellies on, pitchfork in one hand, needle and thread in the other, ready to weave my story in to the tapestry of Exeter life.
Within this, the most communal and supportive of settings, I have been able to spread my proverbial wings, find my feet, and fulfil an entire plethora of clichés, all associated with starting the next stage of life after flying the nest. Clichés would not become clichéd if they weren’t true, in the same way that the intense passion and fondness for the University displayed by Exeter students and its alumni can of course be found within the pages of a prospectus, but also eavesdropped from a passing candid conversation, or gleaned from the proud declaration of the institution’s title across a myriad of colourfully-hooded chests.
Exeter has become a home to me, and while in the business of spouting the occasional cliché, I refuse to reduce everything that this university and this city means to me to a flippant, recycled utterance, or even so much as try. My connections to this place and its people are intensely personal, despite their resonance with the experiences of so many others, and it is this plurality of experience that makes it all the more special. To some, Exeter may simply be a point on a map, or just a choice of university, but for me, this is my Exeter, my university, and now my home.

Wednesday, 25 January 2012

Life in Print

Hello again. (Cue sheepish, apologetic smile)
I know I've been promising you new collections of words, but in truth, all my missives are being sent in various other directions, and I'm actually sort of living various different writing-related lives.
Please don't give me that look; it's not you, it's me. No, really! I seem to see an opportunity to write and jump in feet first without even the merest of glances back at little old you.
By way of the beginnings of an apology, let me link you to one of my pieces which just so happens to be online...

Check out page 7, the bit about flaming barrels of tar.

See; I have been writing. Now, back to that, er, other thing. *cough*

Friday, 2 December 2011

Words!

So it's been far too long since I wrote anything on here, even if I have been writing in other places. (Promise!)
Here's something I re-discovered today, and subsequently re-wrote which no longer has a specific home to go to, so I thought I would set it free to let it graze upon the pastures of your minds.

Fresh-Faced
As clichéd as it may be; we were all young once. Your first year at University can be a massive learning curve, and for me, the new influx of freshers just reminds me of how lucky I am to not be one anymore! Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely adored being a fresher, and all the challenges, new friends, and questionably legal mixtures of alcohol it threw at me, but having been at a university for that much longer you naturally become more comfortable in your surroundings, and can concentrate on other things besides staking your claim and asserting your independence.

Think back to your first year at University (assuming you’re not currently in it) and think of all the incredible, but also incredibly ridiculous things you encountered. (Maybe keep that thing to yourself)Who am I to try and deny these shiny, new undergraduates all these incredible experiences? It stands to reason that almost all of us, at one point in our university lives, have been that one person in a group of friends who has slightly overestimated the amount of alcohol our perhaps questionably nourished, and sleep-deprived bodies can handle, and subsequently behaved in a manner not entirely in-keeping with the standards to which we hold ourselves in our day-to-day lives: it happens. If it had never happened to me, there would be significantly fewer embarrassing memories for me to suppress, and my closest friends would be unable to relish in reciting the story of my drunken offer of First Aid to a poor, unsuspecting boy, just minding his own business sat on the pavement. (Don’t ask) It is this exploration of limits, and extremes of behaviour that ultimately help shape the person you become for not only the rest of your time at university, but also the person you will someday be out in the big, bad real world.
Finding friends who I know will be there for me at my most sober, and most “wobbly”, has in itself, also brought me the very same people who will support me through both those extremes emotionally, and has helped me find people who will undoubtedly be part of my life for the rest of my days, even if not necessarily physically.
For me, personally, as I’ve aged through university (I would use the word mature, but the two are most definitely mutually exclusive) and I think for others too, priorities have changed. I’ve never been a massive fan of going out to clubs, although it invariably has its place, but as someone nearing the end of their degree it has become more socially acceptable to stay in, drink wine, play board games, drink gin, and find that 4am is the perfect time to end a pseudo-philosophical discussion about music with the unanswerable cry of “Yeah, well, your mum likes Wagner.” (The dead, German one)
So, fellow non-first years; we should not pine, or judge, but instead continue to make our own fun and leave freshers to their own discoveries with perhaps the odd steadying hand should you encounter any particularly intoxicated ones. Someone said to me recently that as an older student I cut a Yoda-like figure in amongst the haze of ’11 leavers’ hoodies, and that’s the kind of distinguished, refined notion I think we should all strive to adhere to.

So until the next time, which I promise will be as soon as I've got my 8,000 word deadline out of the way, I bid you adieu. :)

Friday, 26 August 2011

The right to write.

So a month or so ago I entered a writing competition, and considering I decided to do so about an hour before the deadline, I'm pretty pleased with what came out. As this is the case, I thought I'd share it with you. :)

Sticks and stones won’t break my bones, but words and actions haunt me.
We are born with this wonderful fleshy armour that is designed to protect us from disease and damage, but the holes in our head which let in the light and sound are the only chinks our enemies need.
We are often told that the brain is like a sponge, and that long-since taught facts and figures can be found second shelf to the left, next to Aunty Glenda’s birthday, but no-one talks about the dark, dimly-lit corner where the bad memories lurk, with the long held on to grudges, and the jibes from “heated discussions.”
Some people’s dark corners are bigger than the average. Some people have entire dark sections, just down those stairs that no-one really likes the look of, and the local children terrify each other with myths and stories of what lies at the bottom. In the basement of our thoughts, insults and jibes cling to the walls like damp; taking on a viscous, tar-like feeling, coating every one of our thoughts and actions and tinging everyday life with their damning effects.
Words are magical and wonderful, but when put in the wrong hands they can maim and destroy. Some people grow out of being bullied, but think of those children that don’t. Those children that dwell in the basement of life, sunlight never feeling quite as warm as it does to others, because they aren’t worthy of the simplest pleasures, or at least have been told it often enough that they believe it.
“Don’t leave children to fester in basements” seems like an obvious imperative, but figuratively, every child, every person, deserves the right to believe in themselves enough to climb those stairs and breathe in the sweet, fresh air of their own identity, so if you encounter someone in need, take the time to shine a light in their direction, and maybe even offer a hand to start them on their uphill struggle, and know that by the time they reach the surface you will have quite possibly saved their life.

Friday, 12 August 2011

Learning Curves

As a student, stereotype states that I am pre-disposed to lie-ins, laziness and lethargic living.

Now, I will freely admit that I can sleep as well as the next narcoleptic when it suits me, but I seem to have built up this group of friends who regularly greet the world well before 9am, entirely through choice. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not entirely averse to an early start, sometimes even when they’re not compulsory, but it strikes me that I’ve never liked worms anyway, especially early in the morning, and I’ve got this far without it causing me too much harm, so why should I change now?

On the other hand, maybe that extra hour or two could make all the difference. Maybe if I sprang out of bed at 6am every day, I could learn another language, or finish that pesky novel a few years earlier. Perhaps those hours between sunrise and civilisation could be the key to solving the world’s problems! In reality though, the only chance of me actually being capable of springing out of bed at hell o’clock, or 666am, would be if you actually set my bed on fire. Even then I’d probably turn over to give myself another 5 minutes, just to make sure I was scorched right through. I am one of those slaves to their body, who, when they don’t get exactly the right amount of sleep that the mother ship requires, becomes what is affectionately known as “a grump” but upon closer inspection, can be more accurately described as  a she-beast from the 7th circle of Satan’s fiery headquarters.

The same mutation also occurs when my blood sugars get low, which makes being me pretty much a full-time occupation. I don’t know the scientific reason for why sleep and glucose seem to fuel the reasonable part of my brain, but I do know that when there has been a drought of either, your only options are to either throw food at me through the bars, or just push me over and run.

The past few years have been a massive learning curve in terms of understanding myself and my actions. From going to university, and being plucked from my 2-parent, no-sibling bungalow and thrust into a flat of 6 strangers (who thankfully turned out to be lovely) in a building of 11 other similar flats, to then being turfed out in to the real world and an actual house on a proper street, with bills and cleaning rotas, and queues for the bathroom, and then circumstance prompting the decision to plant roots in a 2-bedroom flat with the boyfriend, it’s all been a bit of a whirlwind. I’ve become a bit of a mongrel, in the sense that living with all these different people, you pick up habits and quirks, both bad and good, and your norm is nudged and tweaked until it is almost unrecognisable compared to when you first started out. For example, there are those that start their days with the lark (or the cockerel, I’m not here to judge) and have pretty much solved the political crises of small countries via email by the time you’ve located the orange juice. Then there are those that, away from the parental constraints of social convention, pretty much become nocturnal, and do all that stuff that nocturnal people do in the ungodly hours. From the flatmate who watered down his orange juice, to the housemate who ate dry pasta, all via the veritable soul mate who has taught me that people with little legs just need to take bigger strides when they walk, it really is all part of life’s rich tapestry. (That last one was born from necessity; else I’d have walked almost everywhere alone and talking to myself for the past few years)

Moving away from your parents and family opens you up to a world of possibilities and the realisation that there are different ways of doing things. For instance, upon moving back home for this Summer I realised that I now pair socks differently to how I used to, which is, fairly understandably, how my parents still do it. Despite not entirely feeling, or even looking like the same person who flew the nest a few years ago, it still holds true that if you were to chip away at the newly-acquired outlooks, borrowed linguistic foibles and the amalgamation of accents that now coats my words, I am still me, just with more experience, and my new challenge is fitting back in to past situations without ripping the seams.

My good friend, no, scrap that, my wonderful, marvellous, talented friend (gemmalouise) who I even have the pleasure of knowing in actual real-life reality, recently posted a piece about parents which got me to thinking about all of this and is why my initial post idea has morphed in to this rather lengthy missive.  Now, I have to be careful what I say here, because my parents are actually readers of this blog (Hi Mum, hi Dad) but hopefully my next post won’t be about the trials and tribulations of being homeless!

It’s amazing how your relationship with your parents changes, or at least mine has. There was that time in my teens when it felt like a day couldn’t go by without some sort of argument or heated exchange and looking back, I probably wasn’t as innocent-a-party as the teenage me would have protested. I often get this overwhelming urge to apologise when I think back, but I’ve heard countless times that most, if not all children go through this horrible stage, and most make it out relatively unscathed, with only some laughable wardrobe choices and an ill-advised “forbidden” tattoo or piercing or two to show for it.

What I’ve come to realise, is that as I’ve been growing up, my parents have been growing right there with me. It’s got to that stage in my life where I’ve finally realised that my parents are human, perhaps even only human. I mean that in the most appreciative, respectful, gracious way possible, because I know how incredibly lucky I am to be their daughter, but the fact is that as I have started to grow into my own identity, I have also come to realise that they are their own people behind the labels Mum and Dad. Sometimes, this dual discovery has been fractious, but I also feel it has strengthened our relationship. Parents used to be this homogenous entity that you tolerated and placated in order to try and avoid altercations which, when it was the two of them against one, were, like, just so massively unfair. Even being able to tell my parents about this blog, and let them in on this part of my life, which is getting bigger and bigger by the syllable, has helped enormously with communication and honesty on both sides.

I know that some people don’t have the ideal relationship with their parents for a myriad of reasons, and there have been plenty of times when my parents and I have barely seen eye to navel, but in some situations, where you see parent and child stereotypes seemingly reversed, it can be frustrating and disheartening even from the point of view of an outsider. It is in these cases that it’s important to remember that the parent-child relationship is a complex one, and while I can think of a fair few wrong ways of going about establishing one, I certainly can’t think of any definitive right ones. So, in the future, when having babies finds itself near the top of the “To-Do” list, that will be another steep learning curve, and yet another moment of self-discovery, and is one which we’re probably all already sub-consciously preparing for.