Bedroom Walls in Freshman Halls

Fresher's. Freshmen.
The first year of University is now officially over as I take down my posters, my pictures and pack my room away into the boxes that I will pack into the car with at 8am tomorrow, and drive home.
I'm not going to go into a huge spiel about all the fabulous people that I've met, and how they've inspired me because it's 25 degrees in the middle of May and I just genuinely can't be bothered right now. They know who they are, the wrong ones and the right ones.
Instead, I'm going to leave you with a few of the quotes I've taken down off my freshmen halls, bedroom walls.


"Paris, is always a good idea."


"Can you imagine no love, pride, deep fried chicken? Your best friend always sticking up for you; even when I know you're wrong. Can you imagine no first dance, freeze dried romance, five hour phone conversations, the best soy latte you've ever had and me?"


"It ain't hard to see who you are underneath. I'm still in love with who I wish you were, and I wish you were here. I've seen your act, and I know all the facts; I'm still in love with who I wish you were."


"I'm not giving up - just starting over."


"Je ne regrette rien..."


"Just because a person is happy and smiling all the time, it doesn't mean their life is perfect; their smile is a symbol of hope and strength."


"Stop being afraid what could go wrong, and start thinking of what could go right..."


"We're fools whether we dance or not, so we may as well dance."


"I may not get over it, but I'll get through it."


"So lately, I've been wondering  - who will be there to take my place? When I'm gone, you'll need love, to light the shadows on your face. If I could, then I would, I'll go wherever you will go. Way up high, or down low. I'll go wherever you will go."


...and last but no means least. A quote from a TV show called Misfits, that I think aptly describes my generation ;)

"We're young! We're supposed to have bad attitudes and shag each other's brains out. We are designed to party! Yeah, so a few of us will overdose or go mental - but...Charles Darwin said you can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs. And by eggs, I do mean getting twatted on a cocktail of class A's. If you could just see yourselves. It breaks my heart. YOU'RE WEARING CARDIGANS. We had it all. We fucked up bigger and better than any generation that came before us. We were so beautiful!!!" 

Feminism In A Nutshell.

Studying and reading up on feminism for this weeks American Studies Seminar is actually more enjoyable than I initially expected. Some people I just do not agree with, people like Ginia Bellafante, who wrote an article for the TIME newspaper called "Feminism; It's All About Me!"
It took me long enough to decide where she stood on this issue, and although, yes she has done her research well, I don't like her standpoint or the way she goes about portraying it.
Turning movies into garbage, she manages to somehow belittle the dinners and galas that are put on in order to raise awareness of women's rights and witter on about Simone De Beauvoir (love) and The Feminine Mystique for a page.

Personally, I'm on Kate Nash's side. Just because she put it so effortlessly simply;
"Feminism is not a dirty word. It does not mean that you hate men. It does not mean that you hate girls that have nice legs and a tan. It does not mean that you are a "bitch" or a "dyke". It means you believe in equality."
- If believing in equality certifies you as a feminist, then I can safely say that is what I am.
I don't think it's fair that in the USA the average female worker earns 76 cents in comparison to the dollar that a man gets for the same job. That doesn't mean I'm going to run into the street and burn my bra. That doesn't mean I'm going to do a Glenn Close, and somehow (!?) manage to get 2,500 people on their feet chanting "CUNT". But it does mean I believe in equality.

Bellafante has turned popular TV show Ally McBeal and Brigdet Jones into "frivolous neuroses" by using quotes from the movie such as;
"Cannot face the thought of going to work. Only thing that makes it tolerable is the thought of seeing Daniel again, but even this is inadvisable since am fat, have spot on chin and desire only to sit on cushoin eating chocolate and watching Xmas specials."
Bridget Jones is that kind of girl, but that doesn't class the rest of us as the same.
We all have our days where we don't want to get out of bed for fear of a terrible hair day, or we avoid going to our favourite coffee shop because last time we went we managed to spill our caramel maccihatto down our favourite jeans infront of the hot male Barista. But most days, we just get up and get on with our day, shit or no shit.

My housemate told me this week that I remind her of "Kat Stratford" from the movie version of 10 Things I Hate About You, starring Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles. This made me laugh, because Kat is infact a feminist outcast, decribed by her guidance councellor as a tempestuous, heinous bitch. Even with that description, I do see a little of myself in her and I will quite happily take that comparison as a compliment.
Never before this have I ever considered myself a feminist.

Another thing Kat Stratford and I have in common?
We like guitars, angry girl rock music and always fall for the wrong guy.
Till next time,
Alex.

One Of The Guys

It's pretty standard information that I don't get on very well with girls, and my best friends do currently consist of mainly guys. I love this aspect of my life, I don't have to deal with bitchiness as much as most girls, I can wear what I want without being judged, and in the end, sometimes it's fun to be one of the guys.

I can happily spend all day in my tracksuit bottoms, watching horror movies and action flicks before watching the superbowl in the evening, but lately things have been hitting the shit.

I'm getting shit from my girls about being friends with the guys, and my guys are driving me insane.

I think the guys do occasionally forget who they're talking to; yes I'll comment on the attractiveness of a girl they're rating, but afterall, I do infact belong to the female race and although I may (brainwise) be more masculine than feminine, I do still have feelings.

When your best friends are guys, you never get compliments on your looks - why would they hit on you? You're their friend. Their sister. But, you do have to listen to them rant on and on about your mutual hot female friends. This is something I cannot take; to a certain extent yes, but after a while, it gets tiring. I understand that this is what friends talk about, but there is only so long I can hear about how all my male friends would sleep with certain female friends, and I'm sitting there like "Uh...what about me? Am I a total reject then, yeah?"

I know it probably sounds like I'm fishing for compliments from my boys, but I swear to God I'm not. I just wish sometimes that they'd recognize me for the girl I can be occasionally and appreciate my legs in my skirt. You know what I mean?

Fuck this. Till next time.

Alex.

Tattoo, who?

As you may know, recently I've been quite into the idea of getting a tattoo. Well, you may not know that as I think I only posted about getting pierced again here.

Anyways, just take it as a given; I was thinking about getting tattooed.

At least, I was. This week, I went with my housemate, the gorgeous Katy Loveless, to have her anklet tattoo touched up and when we left the shop on Tuesday afternoon, I was more pumped for my tattoo than ever. Until I got home on Thursday afternoon, to hear that two of my other house mates are also getting tattoos in the near future. One, a Welsh, musical theatre enthusiast named Steph is looking at getting a £35 treble clef on the inside of her left wrist, and the other, a self confessed judgemental, named Kate is looking at a £30 simple star outline in the same place.

The reason the pricing is so cheap for these tattoos is that £30 is the base line pay rate for just getting the tattoo gun out. So, no matter what you have done it's not going to cost less than £30. Steph's will probably be a little more, because of some finer details and shading whereas Kate is going for simple black lines.

I'm not sure why this put me off so much, because if I did get my tattoo I wouldn't have told anyone anyways, because I'd want to keep it secret for me as long as possible. But I am definitely more of a person to get a tattoo where people couldn't see it. Even though I was originally looking at a 5cm by 7cm tattoo for the lower inside of my left ankle.

Either way, I think I'll back off the ink for the moment, and maybe get something a little less permanent.

How about some hair dye, or a piercing or two? ;)

Till Next Time

"You don't shit where you eat."

This week, I've been driving myself systematically insane. The issue of housing for my next academic year is weighing down so heavy on me, I don't know what to do.

I currently live in West Downs, which is a cute little Manhattanesque Student Village on Romsey road, at the top of the hill. I really like it here; initially, I wanted one of the flats with the flight of stairs to do the door, but now I've lived in the little house for four months I am definitely preferring this choice, just for ease of moving in and out, and then of course there's the issue of the skyscraper stripper heels that I am partial to, and how they don't get on very well with stairs.

Before I moved into house 17, I did have preconceived notions about living with people and how it would be to live away from home for the first time, where I have someone who does my ironing etc. I hadn't really thought about the community aspect of living; my head was pretty much just running in circles on the thought of the people I would spend the next year living with.

My housemates turned out to be lovely. Really, really lovely.

There's eight of us, two of whom don't really talk to us because they have separate social groups as they are international students; the others however, are the closest thing to family I have here. My five other girls and one guy are the people who are always home when you need them to be, and are always there to put the kettle on, and remind you to drink up.

I didn't think our boy to girl ratio would work very well, given that we are 1;5 but it does actually work. We've all found our own friends and have become friends with each others friends so it's all worked out in the end it would seem.

Quite a few of our mutual friends live down in the Queens Road Student Village, which is between West Downs and the King Alfred Campus. They all have these new, really clean looking apartments, which are lovely but I still feel more homey in my little WD House.

Next year, I have to find a group of people to live with. Luckily for me, I have two groups of people willing to live with me. Unfortunately for me, I really want to live with them both. One group of friends, live down in Queens and I met them in the first few weeks of Uni, and no matter what, I always have fun with them when we go out. My other option is to continue living with my current housemates again.

My current housemates are my friends, of course they are, but they are also huge parts of my life. They are family, and we work like a family. We're always there for each other, and we definitely know how to have fun - they also are looking at spending the same amount of cash that I am, whereas the Queen's budget is slightly larger than mine, and I feel bad to drag them down to a cheaper house when they could afford something nicer.

So now, I'm presented with a predicament?

Do I live with my friends, who I love, who take my mind off my crap, and always know how to have fun?

Or...

Do I live with my family, who I love, who sort through my crap with me, who know how to have fun, and who also share the same monetary views?

This is a toughie.

Well, I've got reading to do. I can't sit around procrastinating all day.

Till next time,

Alex.

Trust No Man; Fear No Bitch

The proverbial “they” say that trust is the key to happiness. But what happens if you’ve got no faith left to base your trust on? It turns out, having faith is a necessity to be able to trust people; you’ve got to have faith in the human race as a whole. I do have that, I really do, sometimes it just wavers slightly.
I’ve misplaced my trust so many times now; sometimes I’ve even actively watched myself do it. It’s not that I don’t want to trust anyone because I honestly do; I would be a lot happier if I knew there was someone in my life, male or female, that I could completely trust in. I look at my life at this moment in time, and I don’t see that person, or someone who has the potential to be that person.
Having been let down yet again by another man, or someone who calls himself a man, my faith has taken such a beating that I just don’t have any more trust to put in people; I can’t keep giving it away, if I’m only getting it stolen from me in the long run.

I’m really trying not to be a person with trust issues, but if people keep bottling out, and life is dealing me the ‘trust issues’ hand, should I just take it?

When I was younger, I mean, really young I used to think that I’d never have any emotional experiences. This is going to sound crazy I know, but I wanted to know what it felt like to be cheated on, to know what it felt like to have my heart on the floor, but also to know what it felt like to be head over heels in perfect love. Sadly, I’m nineteen this May and yet to find the latter. Many guys fit the mould, but all have fallen short. Not because I was testing them, but because they have pulled out of the race for one reason or another – sometimes without a reason totally.

“Forgiveness is such a simple thing, but so hard to do when you’ve been hurt” – Maybe I need to learn to forgive people before I can go about trusting new people. I’ll never forget the people who have hurt me, or broken my heart, but surely I should be able to move on? To forgive them? Because in 20 years or so, I’ll look back and realise how silly and petty everything was. At least, I hope I will.

Again going back to the proverbial “people”, People say that if a girl tells you her problems – it’s not because she’s bitching or moaning, it’s because she trusts you. I trusted the people I told my problems to. Maybe that’ll be another new year’s resolution; don’t talk about your problems to people. Don’t trust people who haven’t earned it 50 times over. Watch what you say and to whom you say it. Tell no secrets. Trust no man. Fear no bitch.

Piercing. Where do you stand?

So, I am a nice normal, incredibly plain girl. However, I am indulging in piercing lately. I've had my two regular lobe piercings for forever, then around August, I got my second lobe piercings done. (Note to anyone who get's pierced by Claire's accessories. Always make sure the manager does it, or someone who at least looks like they know what they're doing. My second holes are a little wonky - you can't tell unless I mention it first, but as soon as you realise that they don't match exactly, you'll always know.)

So then in September, I moved in with my housemates in Winchester, to study Creative Writing and American Studies; that's when I got two cartilage piercings. One in my upper ear rim, and the other slightly lower down on the other ear.

A few weeks into November, I then went back down to Asgard, with my friend Beth, and we both got out navels pierced. I use the word navel, just because I think the word belly sounds ugly. :)

But now, I'm about to move back to Winchester for my second semester, and Asgard (the piercer I go to in Winchester, who is amazing BTW, check them out on facebook.) keep updating their facebook page, about offers and what not, and it makes me want to take a walk down there on my day off and get some more metal in my body. Okay, I can't pull that sentence off, because I am possibly the whitest girl in Winchester, but...still.

I'm looking into getting either a tongue piercing or a nose piercing. I kinda want both. :) But, it's going to be pricey to keep up with all my piercings and I don't know whether my student account can take it. It can barely take my Starbucks addiction, I don’t know whether I would be making a good decision to introduce another expensive habit.

I'm looking at a bunch of pictures, and they all look pretty cool. I mean, I wouldn't want like a huge chain hanging off my nose or anything, but I think a little, cute stud might be okay. No?

The cartilage in your nose feels technically thicker than the cartilage in my upper ear (obviously, doh.) but does that mean it’ll hurt more? There’s less chance of catching it while you sleep. Unless, you sleep face down. But who actually does that?

Then of course there’s the tongue. My brother had his done, back in the middle ages or whenever, and he needed £3,000 worth of dental work to fix his teeth, after the metal barbell started to grate away his two front teeth. How he managed it, I wouldn’t want to imagine. I’ve always had this phobia about losing one of my front teeth, and it worries me that if I ever spoke too fast, or stuck my tongue out too fast (something ridiculous like that) that I would just chip one of my teeth with the metal barbell. If anyone can give me any advice to calm this worry, I would be mucho grateful. J

Anyways, I’m off to potter around the house, possibly eat something and maybe even do something productive.
Till next time.