Before I Forget

I had to introduce my boyfriend to one of my best friends today. I'd been dreading this meeting the most, especially since the last time we'd all arranged to meet, Jess had freaked out and cancelled.

So we met. Jess was being very casual, probably overly casual but I didn't push it. We strolled into town, desperately trying to get the two of them talking on the way. They were talking, just not to one another. Rob would talk to me and then Jess would talk to me, occasionally talking to him through me, which felt a little weird. There were a horribley large amount of awkward silences, but all in all I felt it went rather well.

No catches.

It actually went well.

It's New Years Day soon. Time for New Years resolutions. I have several for next year, since this years ones were so successful. Here are my new ones. I'm sure I'll find some more to add:

1. Listen. After reading that poem I really want to learn how to listen. I butt into conversations too much and it irritates myself aswell as the person that I'm speaking to.

2. Broaden my communication skills. I'm very bad at communicationing with people. I struggle to get my opinion across sometimes, usually because I don't know how to do it. So I'm going to learn. I'm going to make myself learn.

3. Pass my English GCSEs. I don't want to let my Mum down.

This song is so sad. He has the perfect voice for it though. Merry Christmas.

Need more friends with wings
All the angels I know
Put concrete in my veins
I’d always walk home alone
So I became lifeless
Just like my telephone

There’s nothing to lose
When no one knows your name
There’s nothing to gain
But the days don’t seem to change
There’s nothing to lose
My notebook will explain
There’s nothing to gain
And I can’t fight the pain
There’s nothing to lose
When no one knows your name
There’s nothing to gain
But the days don’t seem to change
There’s nothing to lose
When no one knows your name
There’s nothing to gain
And I just died today

When I ask you to listen to me
and you start giving me advice,
you have not done what I asked.
When I ask you to listen to me
I shouldn't feel that way,
you are tramplin on my feelings.
When I ask you to listen to me
and you feel you have to do something
to solve my problem,
you have failed me,
strange as that my seem.
Listen! All I ask is that you listen.
Don't talk or do-just hear me.
Advice is cheap; 20 cents will get
you both Dear Abby and Billy Graham
in the same newspaper.
And I can do for myself; I am not helpless.
Maybe discouraged and faltering,
but not helpless.
When you do something for me that I can
and need to do for myself,
you contribute to my fear and
inadequacy.
But when you accept as a simple fact
that I feel what I feel,
no matter how irrational,
then I can stop trying to convince
you and get about this business
of understanding what's behind
this irrational feeling.
And when that's clear, the answers are
obvious and I don't need advice.
Irrational feelings make sense when
we understand what's behind them
Perhaps that's why prayer works, sometimes,
for some people-because God is mute,
and he doesn't give advice or try
to fix things.
God just listens and lets you work
it out for yourself.
So please listen, and just hear me.
And if you want to talk, wait a minute
for your turn-and I will listen to you,

Author Unknown

I watched Twilight over the weekend. I was hearing hundreds of amazing reviews about it, but to be honest I thought that it would be another crappy emo-loved teen movie that was totally overrated. It wasn't though. I really enjoyed it and I'm sure it was nothing to do with the fact that I had to pay over £12 for my ticket, a drink and some popcorn. Rip off.

I thought the cast were chosen really well.

Here's a review of the film/book:

When seventeen year-old Bella Swan leaves sunny Arizona to live with her father in the small and gloomy Pacific North-West town of Forks she doesn’t expect to like it. After all she has made excuses not to go there enough times over the past few years. If living in Forks, with its constant mist and rain, wasn’t bad enough she will have to make a whole new set of friends and settle into a new school.

Bella soon makes some new friends at school but when she sees a boy called Edward Cullen sitting with his brothers and sisters in the cafeteria she is instantly intrigued. Edward is stunningly attractive, almost inhumanly beautiful, and yet he is an outsider too. Although Edward and his family have lived in Forks for two years they have never really been accepted by the townsfolk.

At first Edward is aloof, sometimes it almost seems like he can’t stand to be in the same room as her, but eventually they strike up an unlikely friendship. Even as Bella falls hopelessly and irrevocably in love with Edward, she still can’t work out exactly what makes him so different to everyone else.

On a trip to the beach, Bella is told of the local legend about the “cold ones”, a group of blood drinkers who have sworn off hunting humans but are still not welcome on Indian land because vampires are not to be trusted. Realising Edward is vampire changes nothing for Bella, she knows that she still loves him even if he’s not human.

Edward and his whole family are vampires. Edward himself was made a vampire when he was seventeen years-old, although that was at the end of World War I. For Edward his love for Bella is both a delight and a torment. A delight because she is the first person he has loved since he was made a vampire. A torment because although he has sworn off human blood and only hunts animals the craving for human blood never truly leaves him and the very scent of her also stirs his hunger for blood….

There are some really nice quotes aswell.

For example:

Edward: And so the lion fell in love with the lamb
Bella: What a stupid lamb
Edward: What a sick, masochistic lion.

I want to read the book too. It looks good.

My mum has a friend who has a daughter called Sophie. She's nice, I've baby-sitted her and her brother before but she's been having real problems at school. And I completely see myself in her. She's been missing days off school and having "tummy aches" in the morning and that sort of thing. She's been struggling at school aswell because they push her too much. There's only so much a person can do before they crumble. And she's beginning to crumble. Her mum has tried to help but she asked for... wait for it... me to help. Sophie asked for me. Nobody can possibly understand how good that feels for me. I've always wanted to do councilling after having to go through it myself and now ting, golden opportunity. She's really creative so I want to do lots of art with her and talk to her lots and buy her sweets and that sort of thing. A bit of art therapy.

I can't wait.

This song has been whirling around in my head for a couple of days now.

I never meant for this to be,
So long now i guess we'll never see,
The reason to our misery,
Lying side by side though miles apart,
The skylights of my restless heart,
You bring hope when things seem so dark.

And everyday i think of you,
And when the stars come out,
I want you i miss you i need you here,
I guess i'l wait another week,
I guess i'l wait another week,
I guess i'l wait another week,
I guess i'l wait another week,
I guess i'l wait another,
Well i will wait forever,
I guess i'l wait another week,
I guess i'l wait another week.

I met up with Amber yesterday. I haven't seen her in a very very long time but yesterday we agreed to meet and go shopping. A bit of catch-up time, you know. Anyway, I met up with her and I slowly started getting drained of all energy. She's changed a lot and what she's becoming is quite terrifying.

She's an "It-girl" now. The way she spoke and everything... the stories she was telling me. And she's so cool now that I can't say anything funny or random because I get a look of "WAADAAFOOK". It's annoying really, or maybe I'm just so use to hanging around with people that actually understand what I'm talking about (most of the time).

Amber is kind and caring (deep down), and she's been through loads of trauma in her life (more trauma than the average sob story should have to cope with) so all in all she's turned into quite a great person, if you minus the snobby stuff. It's just the friends. We bumped into some of them in town and they were all "OHMAGORDZ I like sooo want to see what's in your bag... OHMAGORDZ that is like, totally lush babes." I wanted to vomit. No wonder she's slowly turning crazy by hanging around with people like that. They all had way too much makeup on aswell and they all looked me up and down as if I were a piece of crap. I felt like it when I was around them. I don't know how anyone can be with people like that constantly.

I'd rather die.

I feel a sense of change in the air, and I feel more than ready to float away with it. I'm dying my hair (again). I'm going for metallic red, but with a purple tint to it. I'm going to buy some purple skinny jeans too so I can be a walking plum.

Apart from a change of fashion, I feel a change of attitude aswell. I'm suddenly more aware of everything now and I want to put that to good use. It's almost like I have the insights of The Celestine Prophecy (by James Redfield). Or maybe not.

The world around me seems especially beautiful lately though.

I'm seeing colour everywhere, which is weird since it's Winter now. And also on top of everything else, there's this sense that something big is about to happen... and I'm not just talking Christmas here.

Or I could just be a looney in the making...

Watch this space.

While I'm on a roll, I'll share this poem with everyone too. This is another one that I found in my brother's book. It's by Carol Ann Duffy.

Today I am going to kill something. Anything.
I have had enough of being ignored and today
I am going to play God. It is an ordinary day,
a sort of grey with boredom stirring in the streets.

I squash a fly against the window with my thumb.
We did that at school. Shakespeare. It was in
another language and now the fly is in another language.
I breathe out talent on the glass to write my name.

I am a genius. I could be anything at all, with half
the chance. But today I am going to change the world.
Something’s world. The cat avoids me. The cat
knows I am a genius, and has hidden itself.

I pour the goldfish down the bog. I pull the chain.
I see that it is good. The budgie is panicking.
Once a fortnight, I walk the two miles into town
for signing on. They don’t appreciate my autograph.

There is nothing left to kill. I dial the radio
and tell the man he’s talking to a superstar.
He cuts me off. I get our bread-knife and go out.
The pavements glitter suddenly. I touch your arm.

I found this poem by Seamus Heaney in an old book of my brother's. It moved me, it really did.

I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o'clock our neighbours drove me home.

In the porch I met my father crying-
He had always taken funerals in his stride-
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.

The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand

And tell me they were "sorry for my trouble".
Whispers informed angers I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand

In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.
At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived
With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.

Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,

Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,
He lay in the four foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.

A four foot box, a foot for every year.

-Seamus Heaney

While Seamus Heaney was away at boarding school, his younger brother was killed in a road accident. He later went on to write this poem... sad, eh?