Just thought I should say a few words as possibly the most important moment of my life is in 6 hours when I get my A level results. I am pretty nervous. I have a good chance of getting the grades I need but there is still a more than reasonable chance that I will get a BBC instead of a BBB which would mean going to Lincoln Uni and having much less chance of making it as a big time journalist.

Effectively, if I do not make it into Sheffield I lose the best opportunity I have to make it in my chosen career. It is possible from Lincoln, but so god damned hard it is very unlikely. Therefore if I do not attain three Bs in 6 hours time, my life plan is pretty much fucked to put it bluntly.

It all rides in 6. Then that will be it, straight down the line.

If I do not post for a while then the news will be bad and I wont feel like writing anything.
If the news is good however I will be dancing and shouting loudly and doing the same here.


BBB Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Sheffield Journialist GET IN MY SON!

BBC




Shit.

I have just come in from another talk session with Tina hehe. She comes out with some profound stuff every now and again. The other day we were talking about the nature of religious beliefs (nothing much then) and the way in which we disagree with many aspects of Christianity. One of these aspects was our opinion that people who worship an all powerful being spend too much time badgering him/her/it asking them/it for assistance. If this being is so great and holy and all powerful, why keep on asking them/it for favours when you should be living a good life in return for the life within you? TIna came out with a line that I thought was pretty brilliant "Why make Jesus do overtime?"

I swear one day that girl will just come out with a theorum on relativity or the cure for the common cold or something. She is so convinced that she is not intelligent but she is and every so often comes up with a gem that other people wouldnt think of in a million years. If she ever finds the career for her I know that she will go far.

Speaking of good quotes I feel I owe it to the fantabulous Shirley Manson - lead singer and writer of Garbage to sing her praises here. Her blog is absaloutley rivetting and a brilliant read. I can spend well over an hour just reading her back catalogue which I find truly fascinating. She is a tempestuous woman prone to wild mood swings of depression, elation and despondance. This when coupled with brutal honesty and a real flair for descriptive writing makes a great diary. In one post I read today she was talking about how she can often deal with huge problems but finds the smaller things in life difficult to compete with. She wrote: "You cruise through the huge traumas in some respects .........only to find that you break down into uncontrollable weeping when you can't open a jar of beetroot." Hehehe. I love that woman. Everybody should have to read the diary of a thirty something, bisexual, dysmorphic, depressive scottish-american lead singer. It should be the law!

Have a look now it is addictive! http://www.garbage.com/news/journal.php?mode=list

God Shirley Manson is cool. Only she could combine the phrases "It made me nearly waz myself", "Bozo the Clown" and "They correlated Samantha's big orange muff" into one coherant hilarious remark. Genius...

In other news today I am now part of "The Dragons" Unreal Tournament group headed by a lovely Devon lass called Fluffy who really looks a lot younger than her thirty odd years.... I am really getting into the game now and am going to start attending the practises and everything. It should be cool :)

Today planes across Britain and indeed much of the world were messed up by a foiled terrorist plot to blow up several British planes. Of course I am only too glad that the mad bastards whose heads have been screwed up by some wisened old gits that have the upmost gall for the West have been aprehended and prevented from harming hundreds of people, but I have a faint and disturbing feeling of apathy.

After the initial absorption of the news and a few minutes thinking I was happy to get on with the rest of my day and forget about the whole thing. Indeed I became narked at how much it dominated the media all day. Of course it is a huge story that deserves ample coverage but I increasingly become tired of the extensive and sensationalist coverage by the media outlets. Of course it is hard to sensationalise such an extreme story that could have so easily been a tragedy, but I fear that the media simply plays into the hand of the government that will inevitably use this event to pass some other ridiculous piece of legislation that either serves no real purpose or worse is damaging to the liberty and democracy of the country in its present state. No doubt this will help Teflon and his diminishing cronies pass that bloody ID card bill and waste enough money to buy the whole world clean drinking water several times over on a bit of plaggy that some scumbag will steal from me and cause enourmous damage to me through various fraud crimes. Bastards. As I said to Tina the other day "If they want to make me pay £70 for a bit of plastic I dont want or need then they can fuck off."

I mean would you take all of your medical, genetic, financial and identificational information, put it in one place and carry it around with you? Good god no! Would you carry so much as a bank statement with you in your wallet? I certainly wouldnt. So how can it possibly be safe to carry all of this information with you everywhere? If you leave your wallet somewhere and somebody with a trendy machine and some "contacts" picks it up your life is one big mess to sort out because of his Tonyness. Idiots. And just what is an ID card supposed to do? Answers on a postcard please...

I digress as is easy to do when dicussing the increasingly ludicrous plans of emperor Blair. As I was saying several hundred words ago, I am unsure as to whether my tiring attitude towards events like this is justified. Am I just being cold and uncaring? Is this a kind of "Crisis fatigue" in which these things become the norm? Am I the only person who doesnt react to this coverage which may or may not be governmental propaganda? I do not know.

What I do know is that soon I may well be part of the mean machine that tries to control peoples opinions. The national press begins to look less and less appealing. A nice magazine however or a e-news page.... yes....

Well I will say ta taa again for now.

Bye bye :)

#What a difference... a day makes...#

My god. What a bizzarre 24 hours filled with massive highs and some pretty fucking deep lows. I don't know how much I want to write about the lows today. It might be one of those things that I just need to deal with on my own and make sense of it before i can talk to other people about it. I still feel kinda.... empty. I guess I am just very drained today physically, mentally and emotionally. Really emotionally...

Well.
Lets start at the start.

After posting a blog at about 9 last night, I minced around on the net till 11 in the knowledge that I had done exactly zero revision for the double politics exam i had in the morning. I had been all blazé about it completely ignoring the feeling in the back of my mind that was saying "This is your hardest exam. You know you have to revise for it." To put my mind at rest I made myself go to bed at what is currently an early time 11pm. I intended to get up at about 6 or half past to do a bit of revision. I asumed I could do it all, after all I had revised the entire Sociology of Religion syllabus and typed it up in note form in three hours the other morning just before my exam (much to the annoyuance of Becky) and the exam went really well. But as I was in the bathroom doing my nighttime routine I got thinking (as I usually do).

The past 14 years of my life have been sent in schools learning so that one day... I can get a nice job and live happilly ever after. Everything you ever learn goes into your final set of exams. For some people that is their GCSEs but for me and lots of other people it is my A levels. As I progressed through my A level years my effort level has dropped lower and lower until I was doing the bare minum necessary to get thorugh without any incident. This suited me fine up until about that moment. My life was beginning to feel empty and without any real purpose or direction. I was drifting, not accomplashing. I had become lazy and was going to make the whole of those 14 years into a bit wet limp across the finish line. I began to think about what would have happened if if I did my exams differently. Would I glow with pride knowing hta I had done my best? I didn't know. It is not since the days of Yr9 PE that I had felt that in school. I had never needed to really push myself. I have always been lucky enough to have had the genes and the social background to do well. I mean both of my parents are clever as are my brothers there has to be something in the genes there and my social characteristics...

We learnt about what characteristics make you the most likely to succeedd in school. It was like a ticklist of me! White, girl, Middle Class, live in a nice area, I have been to the top state schools in Doncaster - Edenthorpe Hall has recieved top marks from OFSTED on several occasions, Hungerhill gets some of the best GCSE results in Doncaster and Danum 6th form is so good that Universities actually know the school!

So I guess I never really had to try because it was all there for me already. Don;t get me wrong, it isn't that I have coasted all these years beacuse I didn't. I do pay attention in class and so my homework but I never really gave school that extra 10% than I put into stuff that I do for myself like learning new instruments and drawing and stuff.

I sat in the bathroom and thought. "What if..." I wondered what would happen if for these last 3 days I worked to the max and really realised my potential. If I really wanted to I just knew that I could pull out something special and get some damn fine results that I could be proud of rather than just acknowledge as expected.

My mind drifted to what I wrote ages ago in this very blog about not wanting to just drift through but.... blitz it! Do it as damn good as I could and really be happy with the result. Then my mind drifted to something wonderful that Mrs Lucy Pond - a drama teacher at Hungerhill said to me and the whole production team just before the performance of a lifetime in Bugsy Malone. She said...
"I want you to imagine that within us all is a flame.... this flame is a little flicker in your tummy. Now when you go out there and perform that little flame will turn into a ball of fire and you will act harder than you ever have before. You will all give the best performance you have ever given and feel fantastic afterwards. Now.... go out there and do it."

Those words have stayed with me ever since that cast did the most amazing performance I have ever seen. Everybody was so good that they did everything spot on and then added little bits here and there that just made the performance fabuulous. Even me on the dinky school keyboard did a flawless performance and I was so crap in the stageband!

Those words are what originally made up my mind that I wanted to be a journalist. Whenever I think about it I can feel that flame in my tummy and at that moment as I sat in the bathroom, it became a blazing ball of fire.

Suddenly from nowhere it was like I was a different person. I became super assertive and awake and booted my ass in gear. I grabbed my school file of hundreds of messy scribbled noted of no order and tipped them on my knee. I spent the next hour and a quarter sorting out the politics notes into 8 highly organised piles and disgarding the others on the floor. At the end of the evening at 12.20 I had 9 piles of notes organised into subject that I could grab at 6 the next morning and type up into some brilliant notes. I had arrived again! I was back in the zone!

*****************************************
I woke up this morning at 5.51am after dreaming that I had forgotten to take my sheets with me to an English exam and panicking. I woke up feeling strangley good for that time of the morning and went downstairs to make a massoff coffee and, unusually, some breakfast.

I cannot even remember the last time I had breakfast. Usually I feel sick if I get up before 6.30 and dont really feel like eating anything until at least 10am. Today however I was actually rather hungry so I made myself a bacon and cheese bagel and the most ridiculous coffee ever divised by man (two heaped spoonfuls of Kenco extra rich, one teaspoon of drinking chocolate and two sugars!), I figured I really needed a rush whether it be caffeine or sugar or in this case, both :)

I managed to get about half of the revision done before I began listening to my Dad downstairs. He seemed to be on the phone to what sounded like the Doctors. I guessed it must be Mum as she had looked a bit ill as I had passed her on the way to the shower. I thought it must be something quite ba as my Mum never goes to the doctors ever. Its like a thing our family has, you have to be on deaths door before any of us go to the doctors. We consider it a waste of time as unless its an emergency, whatever you have has cleared up by the time you can see the doctor.

I was slightly concerned but for some reason put it to the back of my mind. I am not really sure why as usually I would have been really worried. Maybe it was because I had really begun to focus on the exam and my revision. Well I figured that something was wrong but I knew it wasnt too bad as I had heard Mum having a conversation with Dad. Before I knew it Dad was calling me so I could get a lift. "thats ok" I thought "If I grab the rest of my notes I can read them in the car and outside the exam room". The car journey took 5 minutes and despite the fact I arrived 15 minutes early, I was one of the last to arrive. We started straight away.

I remember feeling a certain amount of confidence but also a lot of nervousness. This was the exam that would dictate my future. It was the exam that I was most likely to drop grades in and maybe not scrape what I need for Sheffield. I could tell that I had treated this exam as important as I has on all my lucky trinkets and usually I limit them to one exam each! I had my chinese luck earings on, my lucky stripey socks and most importantly of all - my special pendant.

My pendant is no ordinary pendant. You may think I am cuckoo but that doesnt matter... Whether real or just an effective mind trick, I concentrated some of my positive feelings into the pendant when i was tripping over myself concerning they who shall not be named [see my writing stuff blog]. By putting all my positive psi (see www.psipog.com if you are confused) I now have happy feelings on tap when I hold the pendant in my hand. Brings me luck and good karma :)

Anyhoo. The first paper was a gift and went really well - better in fact than all of my ones done in class. The second one went pretty well too only one question was really tricky and everyone found that tough. So there ya go. I suddenly snapped into pushing myself forwards and doing this thing right! Woo!

I would love to continue this but the other half of today will have to wait as I am rather tired and have to do it all agin tomorrow.

Good fry! :)

I feel obliged to post something on here as I have concentrated on my Writing stuff blog for the last couple of days. I have really found it enjoyable and liberating to put my stuff online as it has made me think about how and why I wrote that stuff, what I was like then, what I am like now...

I do like a good think about myself! I know I keep saying it but I probably am egotistical. Heck even saying I am is being egotistical. It is a sad call out for somebody to say "no your'e not... you are perfect Charlotte in every way and I am in awe of you." before getting out Mary Poppins' tape measure.

I really must stop writing things in the library, it is quite exposing. The guy next to me keeps having a quick look. I don't blame him, I would. Hehe I wonder if he is all awkward now...

Oooh. I felt great yesterday after reading partners. I brought an ace Fighting Fantasy book for my girl Danielle to have a go at. It was a little difficult for her but she was really quite enthusiastic about it for a change which was great. She tried so hard and even fobbed off her mates when the tried to get her attention. I still can't get over the fact that she read a big and dfficult word... it began with a "D". It was something like disproportionate or disapline or disaffected or something. The government is right! Phonetics is the way forward!

Yet again I am going to have to wait around till 4 for Alive TV. It hink Terri is coming today though so I will have somebody to talk to hat I know a bit better than the other random strangers. Don't you hate it when you are the 'new one' that everybody excludes?People don't normally do it out of meaness. They just assume you are quiet I guess and don't tend to mae conversation with you when they are set next to their old mates. Well, its not that bad at Alive TV. I make an effort to talk to people but still feel a littel awkward. I think the other newbies do too though....

I really wish (oooh see the poem "Power of a word") that this blog was more interesting today but I think I am in a slightly apathetic and dissalusioned mood. I just have been realising how much I have to do. There is of course the obligatory christmas shopping which I have been enjoying so far... but now Ants T-Shirt probably wont come before christmas so I will have to order something else and I still have to get something for Grandma, Dan, Lisa and Lisa's B Day and now Keith too as he got me a fantastic xmas/b day pressie in Bomberman. I also have to decide what to do with the pile of PS2 games I want to trade in, do all these bits and bobs of homework that I have wheeldled out of, do some coursework, sort out christmas hours at work and most of all, get this task done for Nottingham Uni.

I understand that they are emulating journalistic deadlines but doing a radio newscast and an essay when you have no decent recording equipment and school and work to think about is asking a little much in 2 weeks. I did wonder whether to not bother after I got that Lincoln offer but I can't half arse uni applications. I want to be ready "just in case" with all the offers I can get. For all I know Nottingham is really good. I only added it because it did my course in this area and wasn't as shite as Edge Hill.

Oh well. I guess I need to see Mr Hester to sort out recording this bloody thing. I need to practise my radio voice too. When it said "Broadcast Journalism" I thought it meant writing for broadcast with the option of actually presenting it, not presenting it with a bit of journalism banged on the side. Still. It is an option I guess.

I can't be bothered to write any more today. I am not being interesting enough.

If you don't have anything to say... son't say anthing.