Note to self:

Remember to take joy in the little things.

7/4/14 - Catching Up

Had an absolutely gem of a morning today - finally got to spend time with my best girlie Cheryl!!! I do love her <3 It was so wonderful to be able to really talk to someone, someone who understands me so well that she knows what I mean before I've even finished my sentence.

Plus we watched Frozen, so...

I'm hoooome!

Home with my wonderful, wonderful mum and incredibly happy about it!

I haven't even unpacked yet and I have already bought more clothes...

1 year 5 months!

... Is how long George and I have been a couple :-D Happy anniversary babby <3

Temporary goodbyes

Today saw my last day of lectures before our four-week long Easter break. I am so, so ready to go home! I'll have to spend the month revising, because exams start two weeks after we return to Keele in May, but I still can't wait. I am ready to have more than a two day break from filthy kitchens, busy days of either constant company or unadulterated lonely existence in my room without any real in-between, fantastic lectures interspersed with awful ones, and the noise of nights out, whether I'm participating in them or not. I love it here, but I miss home, and everything that means. I am ready to go back to baths, bookcases, fireplaces, sofas, dining chairs instead of benches, televisions, and the companionship of my mother.
What I am not ready for but have had to face today is the temporary goodbyes that come with extended holidays. Today I said goodbye to my Thursday regulars: Ian, Danielle and Amanda, with whom I have spent almost every Thursday lunch time of this semester, and with whom I only have two weeks of time left before they go back to America for good. They are all off travelling this Easter, so will undoubtedly return as slightly different people, meaning that I just said a very real goodbye (for good) to my friends as they are now. I am currently struggling with two warring sides of myself: one is angry that I broke my rule of not befriending people that will have to leave before I am ready to say goodbye, and one is sad but accepting that good friendships and happy days are worth a little heartbreak.
I also just said my temporary goodbye to Becky, which made me a little sad. I'll see her after Easter as well, and will probably meet up with her in the summer, but she is studying abroad for semester one next year and so I'm going to have to learn how to get through bad literature seminars without her for a few months.
Apologies for being sentimental, and overly easily attached.

After all the goodbyes and talk of leaving today, I can't help thinking about how interconnected time and relationships are. Timing, length of time, whichever is relevant. What would happen if some friendships were given more time to develop? How would it develop? Would it end or flourish, or maybe even turn into something more?
Some of my friendships, e.g Cheryl and I, have endured and indeed flourished over the years, but others that began around the same time have crashed and burned and been lost completely. Others were cut short, others were obviously given too much time. But it is impossible, I think, to tell what would happen for each relationship. I expected to stay friends with a lot of people from high school, but I've now lost touch with the majority of them. At the same time, some have unexpectedly endured. What would my friendship with each of the Americans be like if we had another semester or year together? Sometimes there just isn't a fair amount of time given to us with the people that matter.  We'd all be very different people if certain relationships were given more or less time to fulfill their potential. I wonder if what makes me sad about the Americans going so soon is actually all the lost potential.

Anywho, time to stop drizzling and start getting excited to go home! I'm so genuinely desperate to go that I'm not even daunted by the fact that I have to pack up my entire uni life and move out tomorrow! (33 week contracts, man -.-).
Plus it's only 8 days until I go to Cornwall with gorgeous George and wonderful mum <3 Oh to be by the sea!
I have rough plans to meet up with friends, and I cannot contain my excitement to finally be reunited with Cheryl after god knows how long!

See you soon, friends, we shan't be having any goodbyes here.

Week 10?!

Over a month after my last post, I am to be found sitting in the library opposite my brilliant (and recently self-declared 'educated hillbilly') friend Ian, totally failing to finish editing my short story. Why? Because editing creative work is a genuine never ending cycle of doubt, self-criticism, and the painful murdering of my so-called 'darlings'. Plus this piece is so damn political that I feel like I'm tiptoeing around my own characters.

It doesn't help that today saw the last seminar of my Fiction Through Practice module, so unless my seminar leader starts replying to my emails I am totally alone with this thing.

So while Ian jets off on his fantastical tour of Europe in our Easter holiday month, not only will I be undeniably jealous but I will be sludging my way through countless edits as well as my other final assessments.

I have one question about this. Where the heck has my first year at uni gone?

I know it's not quite over yet, but the speed with which I am being propelled through life right now is super crazy. I have made so many great friends, particularly this semester, and it totally sucks that I won't see them as often after this year. Lucky I will still get to live with a good portion of my closest friends next year, and I'll see some course-mates again in next year's modules, but there's no guarantee that we'll all be able to get together as often as we'd like. Two of my closest friends here - Elliot and Becky - are both jetting off to do a semester of studying abroad, and I genuinely have no idea how I'm going to get through semester one of year two without them. What's even worse is that it's entirely possible that I'll never see the Americans again, and that is not okay. 

So much has happened, and so many changes have taken place - even just since my last post on here.

I don't even know half of what's going on the real world because I can't watch the news and am trying to avoid the depression that would set in upon reading a newspaper. There's plenty of drama in the Keele bubble to keep me satisfied.

One thing that I am aware of, and which you all know really matters to me, is that same sex marriages are now legal here! If y'all aren't jumping for joy then you should be. Love is love, and the way that people show love shouldn't forcibly depend on the gender of their loved one.

On that happy note, I'm going to go and get some dinner, because 7.28pm in the library without food is not okay.

I will genuinely try super hard to remember to blog again properly later, but in case I forget: Stay cool, love who you love, and celebrate the awesomeness of life at every opportunity.