Looking like a loner.

So, exam revision has rendered me a bit of a loner. Before the land of practise papers, flash cards and educational songs engulfed me, I would have scorned the idea of going to a coffee shop by myself as pathetically loner-like. Now, however, I can many days be found, sat alone in my favourite haunt, half way through a bacon and cream cheese sandwich and a french essay on nihilism. It's got to the point now where the lunch serving lady looks at me sympathetically, like "You wish you had some nice little friends to join you."

Ok, speech features calls <3
Tara, God bless
Anna x

The nature of people

I think one of the hardest things in life is that though many of some of us may go through it with this idea that we don't care what other people think, but when it really comes down to it, we do. Often the scariest thing to us is not broken hearts or genuine emotional problems, but hurt pride.Often we're so desperate to impress other people that we put our own moral, beliefs or whole self behind our desire to please. I have met very few people in my life who I believe are genuinely unconcerned about others opinions, and they have all ben extraordinary individuals who I consider to be very lucky, but also very different from myself.

Not so long ago I found myself in a situation that went wrong. And I was more hurt than I expected to be, and I forced myself to consider why. After some soul searching, I was forced to conclude that it was not the events themselves or how they had affected me or those around me that bothered me so much, but idea that now random people, who I didn't even know, may now make judgements about me based on these events. Judgements that I and the people I love know aren't true, but feeling exposed to people I don't know is still a really nasty feeling.

People have a genuine fear of making themselves vulnerable to others. Sometimes I think there is an omnipresent underlying mistrust in all relationships, borne out of a need to protect our vulnerability. Yet this mistrust is only dissolved once vulnerabilities are revealed. This is my unscientific theory for why friendship making can be so hard!

The problem isn't the caring about what others think in itself. Rather, it is the extent to which we let it govern who we are and the decisions we make. Those who let it become too essential a part in their own happiness often suffer from inflated or deflated self-worth. The former isn't really a problem, though it might make you slightly less popular, but the latter can lead to very real self confidence issues.

I think we have to find a balance between caring and not caring what others think, because both can be damaging!

Sleep now

God bless, love Anna

The art of dressing up, and other things.

So quite a lots been going down in Anna's life! The easter holidays are (finally) upon us and at last I have enough time to settle down like a good girl and do all the essays I haven't done during term time. Of course, that means I have only completely one essay and have spent the rest of my time either out, asleep, or watching the Doctor Who repeats on iPlayer. On the whole, its been a great few days since we broke up.

At my school, the week before Easter is Charity Week, where everybody in Sixth Form dresses up in stupid costumes according to a different theme every week, and pays for the pleasure of doing so, all in the name of raising as much money for charity as possible. This year the themes could all have justified dressing up as a powerranger or a powerpuff girl on every single day (Heroes and Villains, groups and duos, All Things American and The Letter P). My personal costume highlight was on groups and duos day, when I came to school dressed as a pineapple, leaves and all. I suppose there's a first for everything. Costumes ranged from Pacman, to a bunch of grapes (my friend Phum cover herself in purple balloons...), to someone who wore a mask made entirely out of foil and nearly gave me a heart attack. I'm not even sure who they were supposed to be.

I am off to Spring Harvest on Thursday, which is a giant Christian conference at Butlins. Sounds lame when you put it like that, but honestly its really good. And some seriously cool people, like me, go ;) also, went to see the Hunger Games last Sunday. It was INSANE. It was absolutely great, although there was a spot of random wobbly camerawork at the start...

Have a lovely week!

God bless,
Anna :)

Love is in the air?

This is quite a deep post, so apologies if you're not in the mood...stop reading now? :P

I have been called cynical many times by more romanticised people in my life because of my inability to have faith in romantic love. I wouldn't go as far to say I don't believe in it, its just I find it a rather odd concept. I very much believe in love, what else is there?! But I feel like there's a highly idealised and Disneycised notion of romantic love that is both unattainable and unrealistic.

Surely what we know as love between friends is realistically just friendship, and mutual affection and trust, which is a perfectly great definition for what love itself means. I find it difficult to separate the idea of being 'in love' with this - I think 'love' in the romantic sense is nothing more than mutual physical attraction, however strong, and friendship, hopefully quite strong. As far as I can, these two ideas cover most 'love' outside of a familial basis.

People often talk of 'falling in love' with someone, and this is another concept I am sceptical about. Sure, I think it's possible to grow to love someone. But for me, I suppose what some people would call 'falling in love' would be simply coming to the dawning realisation that this person's happiness is intrinsic to my own, and that's not something that is entirely confined to romantic relationships. It probably sounds harsh, but I think a lot of the hype surrounding romantic love is merely a fabrication, something we invent to attend to one of our most primitive and basic needs - to be liked, to be attractive, to be loved.

I also have qualms about the idea of a soulmate, or 'the One'. I am perfectly happy to admit that there are probably thousands of people in the world that I have the potential to be 'in love with'. If all we looked for in a partner was physical attraction and personal compatibility then for most of us there are going to be a lot of people who could potentially fit the mould. But obviously, most of us don't have the dilemma of having 60 potential lovers on our tail. Why? Because circumstances and simple chance play a massive role. I think its possible to manufacture whatever emotions you feel like in most humans, if you have the right combination of circumstances. I'm not saying that we're easily manipulated, but when it comes to relationships, humans often let their emotions rule their head. Also, it seems almost too obvious to mention that you will never meet the vast majority of your potential suitors, as the world is a big place.

I'm not trying put a damper on love, I honestly think it can be the most beautiful thing ever. But I just reckon it's sometimes useful to put our skeptical heads on and look at the way we behave through critical eyes. Our idea of love can be so contrived, sometimes I think we need to take it back to its roots.

Ok that's my thought for the day ;) new post coming soon I hope...

God bless, don't be stressed! (Its my new mantra...)
Love Anna :)

My purse is currently on its way to Portsmouth.

So I have spent a happy half term entertaining and being entertained, seeing friends and bemoaning (might have made that word up, ah well) the awful weather. It is now nearing the end and I have precisely 2 hours before church starts to make sure all my work is finished. I am therefore sprawled on my bed writing this.

I say 'my bed' loosely. It is the bed in my room, but I don't sleep on it very often. Now my brother has moved out I prefer to hijack his bed and the bed that pulls out underneath his bed and use these as a sort of makeshift double bed, rolling around and changing positions to my little heart's content.

My friend Hannah from Portsmouth has been staying with me for the past 3 nights and we've spent an enjoyable few days swimming, panto/TV watching, playing Bananagrams, going to a museum and doing all the sorts of things you never bother to do when you actually live in a place. She left about an hour ago, and I realised just after she did that my purse was still in her bag. Which means I now have to go at least 4 days without catching the bus, buying anything, getting a student discount, catching the train or using my Vittles loyalty card before she sends it back to me. Lovely. I think the lesson here is that you should just take your own bag rather than shoving your crap in someone else's, it's not the first time I've ended up with precious items around various parts of the country...

I was victim to a vicious soup-related assault yesterday. Well, OK, my Mum dropped a bowl of boiling minestronie soup on my hand by accident but it hurt a lot. I consequently spent the rest of the day bandaged up and wincing excessively. Waking up today I realised most of the pain was gone, replaced by very red but generally OK skin. I felt like I shouldn't risk too much though, so I put some plasters on in order to milk this injury for all I'm worth. I dare say I'll have made a fairly miraculous recovery by school tomorrow.

OK, my neglected french essay calls, he is lonely.

Have a lovely day my chummy chum chums :)

God bless,
Anna x

Newcastle is bigger than I expected.

So, much as I would like to use my blog as a tool to extract my innermost musings from the deep dark crevases of my brain, I have decided to buy a journal for this purpose instead, as there are just certain musings I'm not sure the internet needs to hear (like the conversation I had yesterday in which we discussed whether it is possible to pee out ice, oops). Turns out journals are a pain to buy. The nice leathery pretty ones are super expensive so I'm doing that 'look in every shop at every one you can possibly find before actually buying the first one you looked at' thing, in order to satisfy myself that this is not, in fact, a waste of money.

I spent today traipsing around Newcastle with my brother and parents. It was prettier than I expected, but also much bigger and now my feet hurt. I experienced my first chicken-bacon-cheese combo burger, and have to say was somewhat disappointed - beginning to think that vegetarian Anna might make an early comeback, meat just isn't cutting it!

I am now sitting on the train home, contemplating life and how I intend to watch Avatar when I get home and thinking about how lovely tomorrow's lie in will be. There is an extremely jovial ticket conductor on this train. Seeing happy, smiley people like that makes me happy to be alive - it just makes everything softer and more friendly when you can tell someone is just genuinely content.

I learnt two new words today: 'avuncular' and 'sop'. One means 'like an uncle' and the other 'a gift given to shut someone up/satisfy them for the moment'. I love language :D

God bless,

Anna :)

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Keeping Everything In Context.

Sometimes, something happens that makes you step back and appreciate the simple beauty of being alive. You have to take a look at everything and put it all back into context because life is so highly strung and frantic that we often lose sight of what's really important.

In the past 3 months, several things have happened that have forced me to consider what a miracle life is, what a wonderful blessing it is to live and breathe and think and do. It just makes me realise that, although some consideration of the future is needed, it's so important not to get lost and caught up in the stress of exams or the pressure of a busy life. Eventually, impossible though it may seem, those things won't mean a thing.

I think at the core of who everyone is, at the core of what it means to be human, everybody craves the same thing. Beyond knowledge or truth or happiness or even meaning, everyone needs love. It's this need that makes us so beautifully fragile and so easily hurt. Its definitely a cliché to say love is all that matters. But I think it kind of is. Love as a verb and what we do with it is the only thing worth anything as far as I can see. Everything good in the world is always appreciated with just a little bit of love, surely.

"My candle burns at both ends

It will not last the night

But ah my foes, and oh my friends

It gives a lovely light."

- Roald Dahl

This is my favourite quotation because to me it talks about the importance of the loveliness and goodness everybody gives out in life, no matter how long that candle burns for.

I love life.

God bless always,

Anna x

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