Vicky and Ellie are getting their A level results tomorrow.

I'm approximately 2.7% less anxious this year, for theirs, as I was last year, for mine.

Eww it is so horrible.

Super duper good luck to them both, and super duper good luck to anyone else who is getting results tomorrow too!!

Oh Lordy. Every post is just a catch up post. BUT I'm here and I'm here for good.

Pinky promise.

To get you in the mood for my life, here's why I love tea (because that is basically my life):

(http://www.anothermag.com/current/view/2770/Why_Tea_Is_So_Very_Magical)

Showy Off Geek Returns.

I'm back, being a showy off geek. YAY I can hear your eyeballs rolling, humour me people.

I got various essays back and I got pretty solid 2:1 in all of them and I was reeeeally close to getting a first in my Hume essay (which I did go mental about so that's nice. Hume became my best friend for quite a long period of time and it was only when everyone else started asking me about Hume as though he were a dear relation of mine that I decided I needed to re-evaluate my life because, much as I love Hume and everything, spending so long with him that friends check up on 'the two of you' (genuine quote) is too far). I did less well in my Approaches to Poetry exam which was, all in all, a hellish experience for which I was totally not prepared and I nearly vommed on the way in to. I passed, but we'll say no more about it.

I'm currently writing an essay asking 'Is moral judgement "a kind of coinage valid only in its country of origin"?'
It's quite interesting and I should probably get on with it.

Catch up 2: Saying Yes to Life in Bristol

And after I turned 19, I went to uni.

THAT SHIT CRAY.

I'm basically going to cheat massively and say that it's amazing. I can't possibly catch up on all the crazy oxymoron emotions and the fabulousness of freshers week and the beauty of Bristol when you first explore it in the sun, with the orange leaves falling on College Green in front of the Cathedral, and the way it feels like I'm in Hogwarts when I go to my philosophy tutorial, and the lucky star I was born under to give me such great flatmates - in particular a girl who I clicked with on the first day and was peeing with on the second (well there's nothing like a bit of alcohol to seriously bash down some social boundaries) - and gosh all the attractive boys.  

I live right in the centre of Bristol on the top floor (the lifts are off. I walk up five flights of stairs. I just tell myself how fit I must be getting) so the views are stunning and we can walk everywhere, which is great when we go out and even better when I wake up twenty minutes before I need to be in a lecture the morning after. 

There's ten of us in a Flat 11, and we've merged with the flat opposite us to form one super Flat 11.5. We're also really good friends with Flat 8 and 9 (Flat 10 are missing out) but I'm on friendly acquaintance terms with pretty much everyone (especially as the constant fire alarms due to burnt toast which involve us all standing about in pyjamas - regardless of the time of day - are great bonding exercises) and so I have a really super accommodation set up.

The work is hard but I'm trying not to get toooo anxious about it (so in normal person terms I'm at about the anxiety level of a turkey in November) but I've handed in two essays and although I know they were a pile of actual poo, I did it, and I did it without going actually mental, which is always good.

I know I sound absurd and cringey and I am quite tired but I just feel really lucky. We all get on so well despite being randomly thrown together and being really quite different and having totally opposite music tastes and having entirely clashing styles and liking completely different sports and tv programmes and films. We buy family milk and make everyone tea and have had two Flat 11 Sunday Roasts and we leave funny notes for each other and share clothes and wash up together whilst singing to the radio and study in the sitting room together and chill in each others rooms and wave to each others grandparents on Skype and sing happy birthday to my sister down the phone and go on cold Sunday Afternoon walks and put cling film on each others stuff because we think its funny.

 And again, I know I sound absurd and cringey but I feel different. I feel more adult and confident and more relaxed about things - myself, mainly. So yeah... I just feel pretty good. Obvs some days I'm hit by my chronic indecision and anxiety and I nearly cry because I can't decide what I want to eat for breakfast and I hate having to shop for myself and hovering is soooo much more effort than I knew and washing my clothes is so time consuming and sometimes work is quite hard, or long, or stress inducing, and sometimes I'm like errrgh 'all I want is a bath and some of mama Williams cooking and a snuggle with Muffin' (my beauts Border Terrier) but most days, I feel excited and happy and looked after by everyone and calm. I feel like I'm saying yes to life, and that its saying yes back.

The Best Procrastination.

Maybe I'm becoming overly obssessed and should just start the 100 pages of reading I have to do for tomorrow instead of just sitting with 'Reading Poetry; An Introduction' open infront of me, whilst finding videos of David Gandy. I don't know. Maybe.

BUT OMG LOOK AT HIM.

I want to go to Milan and meet an Italian on a bike that looks like him and who brings me flowers in the rain and who casually asks to marry me in a cafe in a square with a fountain.

19.

So, first things first, I turned 19!!!

If I'm honest (and I do always try to be) I wasn't really looking forward to my 19th Birthday.

Before you throw rotten veg at me for being such a miserable old fart, which would definitely be a reasonable reaction (not looking forward to birthdays is dull and should be criminal) and judge me horribly (because I am normally silly excited about my birthday - and actually, pretty much everyone else’s too - to the point that I'm actually annoying to others around me), I'll tell you why.

1. It felt way too old. I know, I know I'm hardly applying for a bus pass yet (although I am knitting – more on that later), but my final year as a teenager seems like quite a big, and not particularly jolly, deal. It definitely implies adulthood and responsibilities and own washing and no more glitter and animal socks.

2. All my friends were away!! My birthday was on September 28^th (I am A W A R E how behind I am) and bloody Bristol didn’t start until the next day but all other unis had started nearly two weeks before hand (it was a miserable two weeks) so very few people were about. It was all v emotional I have to say.

3. I was going to uni the next day so was majorly stressing out about this massive rite of passage life changing event that was taking place the next day. So was a bit of a state really. You know me and my anxiety. My poor mother. Also, going to Bristol the next day meant that I didn’t reallyyy want to be horribly hungover (not the best way to meet the folk you’ll be living with for the next year) so has absolutely no idea what to do in order to celebrate my birthday. Stay in? Go for dinner? Clubbing? Drinks? Cocktails? You also know me and my chronicle indecision.

But, in the end, it was fab!!

I decided to have a small select few over for classy celebrations and we had a really lovely time/goodbye.

Polly (of previous post. That one) came down all the way from Manchester which made me very happy and was really very kind of her.

AND THEN, guess who Polly bought with her when she waltzed through the door just as we were cracking open the champagne?? Only Rain bloody Osgood!!! All the way from Brighton. For me. As a surprise. What a total babe.

I loved that everyone else knew and I had absolutely no idea. I’m such a goon (or just very easily influenced by champagne. Probably both.)

 

 

 

It was a really, really lovely evening. Spending it with people that I love the most (apart from three of my girls who were respectively in Leeds, Norwich and Birmingham) in a small, intimate way was so perfect. It was also a very lovely (and really quite heart breaking way)to say goodbye.