Argh! It's that time of year. Everything builds up workwise and things get on top of you. At the moment, I have something due in for every subject and am generally swamped. My procrastination levels, as well as my work levels, are at an all time high. And so far today I have played the ukulele, stalked people on facebook, written this, sung too much Jessie J and watched Outnumbered. I am now settling down to do some French, as it's my favourite subject and therefore the only one I can bare to face.

I spent the majority of today being mardy with everyone as I was in the worst mood ever. Tiredness does that too me. I missed my best friends 18th party on Saturday, and instead got to watch the video of Jack (a very hairy male) having his leg hair waxed off at said party. It looked painful in the video and now Jack's legs are developing multiple bruises, and are frankly, a bit disgusting.

In other news, the School of Rock was on the other day. One of my all time favourite movies. I haven't seen it in a while and have consequently spent the past week quoting it, something my friends have come very close to punching me in the face for.

My friend Richard recently turned 18, and in celebration of this he decided to give everyone he knows a present. This reverse logic is something I am struggling to come to terms with - who wouldn't want presents?! I can't help thinking that as well as being a rather lovely idea, this version of birthday present giving would both save money and effort, as you wouldn't have to remember people's birthdays. On that note, I have 3 18ths coming, and precisely no presents. I realise I am terrible friend, but I never know what to buy! Moral of this story would be don't choose me as a friend, it isn't profitable.

Oh joy, just walked into the kitchen and experienced that joyous feeling that only the addition of an embarrassing, overly smiley school photo of yourself can bring. I shall now staring out, gleefully it has to be said, from my mantlepiece, at least for the next year. The picture makes me jump whenever I see it. Oh Lordy.

Well, that is the current failure that is my life.
God bless!
Anna :)

Geniuses, Uni and Hot Places

So, I won't waste too much time apologising for my overly lengthy absence from blogging...let's just say life caught up with me and I couldn't seem to muster the energy required to write one. Summer has been and gone and I just got back from an "educational" mid-term school trip to Italy (it was beyond amazing/absolutely stunning there and I miss it). I decided to start blogging again because I miss it and because I felt I actually had something to write about!

Being in Italy got me thinking about time. Sort of. In a round about kind of way. I'm currently in the process of applying to university. It's stressful. And confusing. But exciting too. Spending 5 days in Italy in the middle of this process (although probably not the best decision I've ever made academically...) gave me a chance to think about what I was doing. I met some rather wonderful American, Canadian and South African exchange students while I was there - they're spending a year in Italy living the language and learning the culture. It made me think - what IS the rush? Everythings seems so rushed and it was nice to have time to reflect over my uni application. There's so much I wanna do in my life and I want to have the chance to do it! I still think I'm gonna apply for uni next year - it brings challenges of it's own! - but it's definitely got me thinking about possibilities for life after uni and what else there is out there....why rush?! Now's the time to make mistakes and do crazy things that we won't be able to when we're old and responsible. I wanna enjoy that!

"Everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree then it will live its whole life believing it is stupid." I read this Albert Einstein quote on Facebook and it really struck me as true. Everyone is good at something! Contrived I know but genuinely true! There's no point in getting hung up on the things you can't do (Something I always do I know :P), you may as well just embrace the things you can. No point in judging yourself on your flaws and failures and the things you can't do - no-one would ever do anything useful if we all did this!

On a slightly lighter note, Doctor Who was awesome today even though it confused my brain. I've also lost my voice which my parents are delighted about but I can't answer back/talk at all. It's not good. I spent an entire phone conversation communicating answers in grunts.

I'm going to try and post more often but I won't post if I have nothing to say...I'll aim for at least once a week!

God bless :)
Anna

Doctor Who related excitement and philosophical debates.

I am a self confessed Doctor Who addict. There is a small part of me, growing larger by the day, that would like to believe he is real. On hearing genuine Tardis noises floating through my window at night, my initial reaction was to rush to the window before remembering that the Tardis is, in fact, not real, and materializing from thin air is, as yet, impossible. I am proud to admit that for a few blissful seconds there, I was oblivious to these simple facts and was absorbed in a story to the extent that children are.

Imagination is one of my favourite words. I love the fact that stories, impossible things can be built up inside somebody's mind. One thing I am determined to do as I grow up is to retain my imagination, because children seem to always have such wonderful imaginations whereas SOME adults don't seem to have one at all. Growing up, I adored pretending games. Now, my imagination manifests itself when I make up stories for the kids I babysit for, when I write songs or blogs...although the form in which I express it has altered, I still try to give my imagination as free rein as possible when I can.

Ever experienced that problem today where your ideas are too big for your words and you can't quite sculpt what you're thinking into eloquent sentences? That's what I experienced today when a debate ensued in General Studies. Being the only Christian in the room, I was asked to give my views on a number of topics. The issue is though, that despite having doubted and tested my faith to the extent that I am absolutely sure of it, there are certain issues and stuff where I am either yet to form opinions on, or just don't think matters that much. For instance, the beginning of the universe for me I just know it was God. However or in whatever form he did it is something I neither know nor think is of any great importance. I know the why, and I don't need to know the how. My view on this is probably influenced by the fact that I am not very scientific. A few of questions put to me today I literally barel understood but God was good and I found the words :)

God bless,
Love Anna :)

PS: know there hasn't been particuarly recent posts lately but have a lot of work so they're having to take a back seat!

Hi English speaking world! I am currently in the French speaking world. It is much hotter than England, and the family I am staying with had bought me tea so I am happy. I'm currently watching the French version of Strictly Come Dancing. The French equivalent of the Bruno guy has a MASSIVE mohican which I am utterly digging.

In conversation today, my friend Bryan
(who is black) referred to me as "the whitest person I know". After defending my skin colour, saying I was more tanned than the majority of my friends, which I am, he explained that I was "White in personality". He very poorly explained this saying I just talked like a White person. I see nothing wrong with this seen as I am White. I am still unsure of whether I should be insulted by this comment!

Before the flight today, I was petrified that it would crash and I would end up dipped in ocean. In an attempt to comfort me, my friend Gilly informed me that I was loads more likely to die in a car than a plane. Although this achieved the desired of stopping my fears about the plane, it also had an added side effect of making me 5 times more nervous in cars than I was before, and I finished the drive from the airport with much more bitten nails than I egan with...

The french town I'm staying in is so pretty! Can't get over it. I'll post photos o my return, and I'll try to post every other day whilst I'm here at least!

God bless :)
Love, Anna

Outwitted by a 4 year old.

So I am currently in the middle of the British half-term holiday, or as my English teacher likes to call it, a "recess". I object to this term becuase it imples I may actually work in this period, which is clearly false. Today I went to Yap's house and we made 2 different variation of cookies, pancakes, omelettes, and ate ice cream and played music and did a big fat load of nothing.

This week I've been thinking about babies. Not in like a weird way. I just find it weird how once upon a time we could all fit into a boot and got passed around relatives thta cuddled and cooed us and none of can remember it, and yet that same brain, body etc. is what we now use to think, feel, be creative, be aware. It's so bizarre!

This has also led me to think extensively about the future, it's so weird to think that in 10, 20 years time I don't know where I'll be, who I'll be with. I could be married with sixteen children named after the weather on the day they were born, and little Drizzle could be sat on my lap playing scrabble with Cloudy, Sunshine and Chilly. I could be part of an exciting new development that sends ordinary people to space and be about to be shot up in a rocket to explore corners of the universe as yet undiscovered by humankind. I could be a hermit, sat in my hermit cabin eating crab sandwiches and listening to the rise and fall of the ocean outside. I could a trained assassin on a mission to kill the Mongolian prime minister with a ray gun supplied by a Chinese Botanist. And all of these things, although unlikely, are perfectly possible, (perhaps, minus the space one...) because the choices and decisions that lead to them happening haven't been taken yet! I love the fact that my life is a completely open plane, ready to be splashed on and painted and for me to do what I want with it and yet my God knows exactly what choices I'll take and is there to protect me along the way! Brilliant!

I am babysitting at the moment, and I (foolishly, I now realise) agreed to embark on a game of "Guess the Person" with a 4 and 6 year old. On the 4-year-olds go, I whittled it down to a member of his class. Not knowing any members of the said 4-year-olds class, I insisted he must be playing the game wrong before he announced the person was actually himself. I am a fool.

Incidentally, I am 162 cm tall, which is the tallest I have ever been! Well chuffed.

Off to learn my lines for my A Level drama performance. Not going so well.

God bless :)
Love, Anna

anyone with a turtle can't be a bad person

So, at the end of this month, I have an Italiano coming to stay with me. Said Italiano (also known as Carola) seems very lovely and I hope she is a nice person as she has to share my room. There are many complication with sharing a room with an utter stranger. There's the possibility that said stranger will sleep-talk, sleep-walk, sleep-cry, sleep-burp (I'VE SEEN IT HAPPEN), but by far the most irritating sleep related ailment is sleep, or just bedtime, farting. A friend who shall remain nameless has a delightful habit of ringing me a ridiculous times in the morning to demonstrate this particular variety of sleep-related quirk. Yes, thats right, I have a friend who rings me purely to fart down the phone. I refuse to discuss this further.

In conversation with my friend Andy today, I made it quite clear how stressed I was. The reasons for my stresses are numerous and dull, but Andy made a comment that stuck with me. "The more you worry the bigger the worries get". Upon thinking about this, (after head butting Andy and stating that "WORRIES ARE GOOD, WORRIES GET THINGS DONE.") I have come to the conclusion that he may have a point. The more you think about something you're worried about, the more "what if's" you come up with. Worrying neither mends, corrects or changes a situation - all it's good for is amplifying. Andy is one of those quietly efficiently people who gets everything done whilst seemingly making no effort at all. For example, despite regularly discussing holepunch related incidents and other things that affect general society with him in English, while I write 3 lines, he, whilst taking part fully in the conversation, writes 2 pages. I am very jealous of this skill as it is something I most definitely lack.

Upon looking up worrying quotes on the internet (hi, I'm a nerd), I came across this one, which was my favourite: "I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened."  ~ Mark Twain. It is true that we play out every possible scenario in our heads when very few of them actually happen.
Going back to the Italiano topic, my friend today remarked "I'm pretty sure my Italiano lives miles from everyone else, but she's got a turtle so it's OK." Greater words of wisdom I have never heard.

I'm sorry, but I'm not going to apologise.

So Nick Clegg came to our school the other day to answer questions about the cuts and stuff. For people outside the UK, Nick Clegg is deputy prime minister and MP of my area. I'm not really a driven political type but even I could see that he evaded a hell of a lot of questions. There was much, shall we call it heated, debate. It was quite exciting to be able to applaud after someone called him 'a lackie of David Cameron without the strength of character to stand up for what he believes in'. OOOHHHHHHHH.

There was a lot of anger and frustation, on both sides it seems. One of my favourite moments was when Cameron said "I'm being chipper with you now, because you're being chipper with me." I am not 100% sure what chipper means but it still made me chuckle. Without a doubt, my favourite moment was when, in relation to the cuts, Clegg said "I'm sorry, but I'm not going to apologise."  Politicians sometimes struggle to make sense don't they? Clegg was coming across so badly that our headteacher cut the Q&A because people were getting pretty angry.
On a lighter note, I died my hair on Friday - with the help of a meticulous Gilly and a highlighter brush, and without the help of an allergic-to-henna Amy, who instead sat on the utility step and kept us company via the medium of talking. I spent the rest of the evening with my head wrapped in clingfilm, which as you can imagine is the most attractive look a girl can go for. The problem with using clingfilm as a hair accessory as opposed as an implement for aiding packed lunches is that it was made for the latter, and no matter how much clingfilm you wrap around your henna-covered hair, it just doesn't stay on very easily :(

 God bless :)
Love, Anna

Formspring poster?

I have recently yielded to the masses and got myself a formspring account. To the (fortunate) few who are uninitiated, formspring is a website designed for the abusage of its members. The idea is you get an account, and your "friends" anonymously ask you interesting and insightful questions, or, in reality disgusting nevertheless imaginative questions that would almost definitely not help them get to know you better.

I signed up in the hope that I would get some amusing questions, and the first question somone types is "Shaven haven or hairy mary?". Despite making me LOL, it did make me wonder who on earth has time to think up this questions are post them on unsuspecting formspringers pages. You also get the utterly too forward questions that no-one would ask you in real life, and in which the askers seem to forget that most people do not want to splash around details about their private life on the internet...

Of course, Formspring was pretty much created with abuse in mind, like marmite and chips without ketchup. You can't make a Formspring account without expected some level of impertinent or abusive questioning. In general though, the questions, even the ridiculously forward, inappropriate ones, have managed to make me giggle.

On the subject of abuse (SEE THE SMOOTH LINK THERE ;), the Christian Union at my school is discussing the creation of a poster that has each of our faces on it, and putting on the words (something like) "We're Christians, ask us why!". Undoubtably, these posters would recieve some level of abuse - all be it on the permanent marker/willy drawing level. I have decided to allow my face to be on this poster after a looonngg debate with myself. Despite the abuse and the obvious teasing it might get, I'm hoping it'll also arouse some questions that  give me a chance to explain what I believe. I think it's time I suffered a little for my faith - especially considering what being a Christian in some countries costs.

God bless :)
Love, Anna

Let's be nice...

Is doing a nice thing still a nice thing? I sometimes wonder whether 'acts of kindness' are really kind if the person performing it is doing it out of a sense of duty instead of love.

One example I could use to illustrate this is apologising. If you apologise to someone and they think you are genuine, but inside you don't mean it, is it a valid apology? Do your intentions affect the meaning of your actions?

I suppose it's a question that I could hypothesise about for days without really coming to a useful conclusion, and I'm not even sure if there is a right answer. Or is it just opinion?

The bible takes two different angles on this. The first refers to a specific example. (I don't know the reference, might be Philippians). It says that even if the bible is preached with ungodly motives (it means like preaching it for our own ends, to make ourselves look and feel better), then the message is still being proclaimed so it doesn't matter! This only applies to God's word bein preached though.

The bible, and this is paraphrasing, also says basically that you should do everything with love, or it is worthful. Essentially, you could raise thousands for charity and do all the good works in the entire world, but if it is all done without a scrap of love then it is worth nothing to God and it is not glorifying to him.

In discussion with a friend today, we concluded that the first thing Sbout the message being preached whatever bit was because Paul was writing at a time when a lot of religiousity and 'my faith is stronger than your faith' existed. Paul was not commending the facts that people preached God through the wrong motives, but claiming that Gods word will shine change and prevail no matter how genuine or proud or otherwise the deliverer be.

Ulimately, I think that motives and intentions can really define a person. It is not so much what we do, but why we are doing it that is written on our hearts.

The most important thing is love. I truly believe that if love is your true motive, then everything else follows.

God bless
Love, Anna :)

BEAUTIFUL (and ginger hair)

I have come to the dawning realisation over the last few days, that life is just so beautiful.I have started to see beauty in everything. Everywhere I look I just wow, that's so beautiful!

My God created a beautiful world!

There is a lady at my church who, during worship time, literally just runs about and dances. I was staring her today and was just caught up in how beautiful free expression is. I am actually just looking at things and realising how precious life is.

All my life, I feel like I've taken beauty for granted by trying to attain it. Does that make any sense? I mean, we all try so hard to beautiful (or handsome...). Our lives are practically ruled by trying to make ourselves appear beautiful to others, and the world tells us that as long as other people think we're beautiful, that's all that matters.

Well I believe something different. I believe that God looks at our hearts. That he looks at our hearts and what we've done, what we look like becomes irrelevant. All that matters is how much we loved God, how much we wanted him.

Because our God is beautiful, and I choose to accept that beauty and believe that he made me beautiful too. I'm already beautiful, and nothing I think about myself or do will ever change that.

This has been a very confused blog, and on a different though slightly related subject...I am quite possibly voluntarily dying my hair ginger next weekend! :D Having dared my friend Gilly (she is yet another beautiful thing in my life...) to dye her hair with 'Marron Caca' (look it up :P), she has gone auburn ginger. It is a beautiful colour, just ginger! hahahaha. She has now dared me to do the same. It should go a very different colour to Gilly's because my hair is much darker than hers. Here's hopingggg....:P

SO MUCH LOVE FOR YOU
God bless always,
Love, Anna :)

Lets Frape Gilly While It's Raining.

I am sorry for my lack of regular blogging lately - I have just been crazy busy.

I just spent a happy half hour fraping my best friend Gilly while she sat oblivious doing her Maths homework. I changed her profile picture, her gender, her interested in, her quotes, her about me, I liked everything on her homepage and I wrote on many people's wall. There is something immature yet very very satisfying about absolutely fraping somebody to the extent that their profile is practically unrecognisable.

Me and my best friends Gilly and Rae had a lovely sleepover last night at Rae's. Because we are nerds, and according to Rae's mum "not proper teenagers", we played Balderdash, 'Snog Marry Best Friend', and Make 'n Break (A very old building boardgame). The highlight was, of course, the inevitable game of Chin that ensued around the dinner table. Chin is similar to Zip Zap Zoom in concept, the only difference being that you say Chin Chiwa and Chihuahua instead and you can't show your teeth. Seriously, try it :D

We had some funny moments in Balderdash discussing Rae's blonde moments. My personal favourite took place when she was on a plane with her mum. Looking out the window, Rae commented "MUM LOOK IT'S SO PRETTY IT'S SNOWING LOOK AT THE SNOWFLAKES". What Rae was actually looking at was the clouds, (AND she was in the South African summertime). CLEVERtimes :P

It is absolutely tipping it down. I adore rain. It just washes everything and it's so liberating to go and jump in massive puddles and get soaked :D It's currently raining the kind of rain that smashes again the roof and the patio and makes little droplet sounds that make you feel like you're camping in the middle of a thunderstorm. The kind of rain that would drench you in 10 seconds. It's stunning!

A new favourite of mine is the show 'Come Fly With Me'. You'll have to watch it, a blog cannot do it justice. It is just hilarious. Along that note, GLEE IS BACK. It was, as predicted brilliant.

I also got my guitar! His name is Egglebert Acorn Hughes and he is beautiful. Before too long, I should have a few cover versions up on YouTube (once my computer has stopped crashing everything I load it D:

Well this has been a very messed up blog.
I have a much more serious one on self-image coming your way soon, need to finish it.

God bless :)
Love, Anna

I Am Not Sad Today.

Today is Tuesday the 5th of January and I should be sad. You know why? Because today is the first day of school after a lovely long Christmas holiday where I have indulged in far too many mince pies, torn a ligament in my ankle, played some ridiculous boardgames, not learnt my play-lines or done any work, seen some beautiful Portsmouth-dwelling people, woken up after midday every day and generally had a fantastic time always...

On balance, however, I have decided that I am not going to be sad that all this has come to an end because I have 3 things to look forward to. I hasten to add that as soon as these things are over (Saturday) I will desperately be searching for new things to gear my excitement towards, so if you're planning any exciting events, feel free to invite me :P

These three things are:
1. Tomorrow, I am seeing my best friend Rae because she is home from South Africa. I have had a big Rachael-shaped hole inside me in my epic lacking of her from my life, and it will be lovely to get that hole filled again.
2. On Friday, I am seeing my friend Tess who hasn't been in South Africa, but who I haven't seen since August because we are hopelessly disorganised. Tess is the only friend I have that understands all my jokes, and I therefore cannot wait to have her back in my life.
3. I AM GETTING A GUITAR ON SATURDAY. Need I say more?

I had a surprisingly good day today. We have to do a Russian play for drama. I was mistaken to imagining this meant we had to do Russian accents, and I therefore embarrassed myself with my Indian Russian accent...I did, however, manage to go through a whole hour without my favourite music teacher (!) telling me I was so stupid I should die. I then watched an episode of 'The Big Performance' on BBC. I am in awe of Gareth Malone. He takes these ridiculously shy kids (about 80% of them can barely sing in tune or prefer to speak the words to rhythm) and turns them into pint-size popstars (well, sort-of). My brother wishes he was Gareth Malone, and I have to say I have nothing against this proposal.

I have just though of a fourth thing to look forward to.......drum roolllll.............................
GLEE IS BACK NEXT MONDAY.
For the uninitiated, you have something lacking in your empty empty lives. For the haters, MUSICALS ARE COOL. Glee is a beautiful show about very attractive people that dance and sing in a school showchoir. Sue Sylvester makes the show. But gay Kurt does to. I can't decide who I like more.

Leading on from this, I am obsessed with musicals - uncool, nerdy, geeky as it may be my favourite christmas present was tickets to see 'Blood Brothers'. Heeeyyyy, this can be my 5th thing to look forward to!

I am not sad today, I refuse to be.

God bless :)
Love, Anna