So.

Having now both researched a two stories and written them all on my big grown up self, am I officially a journalist now? Ooooh how exciting!

Yeah I have been assigned my patch (which is the one I requested Walkley) which means next year I only have to go outside the front door (or rather back door - people dont use front doors in Sheffield apparently) to get stories. Yaaaaay!

Last Wed I was assigned a Council Cabinet meeting to go to where I had to get 2 stories and follow them up so I could write some copy and hand it in for marking today. I looked up the agenda in advance on the t'internet and guess what? They were going to make a decision on the Myers Grove/Wisewood schools! Oh what gold!

For the vast majority of you that either do not live in Sheffield or don't care about local news enough to notice, there are two schools in Sheffield that have falling pupil numbers. One is a pretty good school called Wisewood and one is a bit run down with rather poor results. The Council can't keep both schools open because the lack of pupils would mean a reduced curriculum and a decline in the standards of teaching.

The Council (I keep on wanting to write the shorthand symbol for council but then remember I am on a computer!) want to build a new state-of-the art-school with a vocational training academy for the pupils that have low attainment so that they can get some job skills. Sounds fair enough to me.

The problem is the people that go to the schools (particularly Wisewood) are understandably a bit upset about having their school knocked down and are finding any excuse they can to tell the Council they are making a massive mistake. Hum.

Thing is keeping open both schools would cost loads and do the kids no good. The government wants to give the Council £28 million for a new school so long as it has some vocational stuff too. Fair enough. The Myers Grove kids could do with something like that because it is quite a deprived area and attainment is low.

Try telling this to parents of Wisewood kids though.

Ah well I might well feel the same if somebody wanted to merge say, Hungerhill with Armthorpe in a big new academy thingy. But thats why we have councils - to do what is best not what is popular.

Anyhoo. I thought I would get my vox pop out of the way (you know when you get loads of opinions from people) as I had to do one this semester and if this wouldnt get people talking then nothing would.

Sooooo. I got out my A to Z and set off in the direction of Myers Grove. I thought I would make a bit of an occasion of it and get dressed like a journalist with boots and a skirt and stuff :D I popped into the hairdressers on the way because I have wanted to get my hair cut for a while and the hairdressers (one of about 10 on my road. How random!) looked empty.

I was served by an extremely camp Scot with the most fantastic neck hair you have ever seen. You could actually see the line where he stopped shaving! He was very talkative, in fact I could hardly get a word in so I asked his opinion on the schools and off he went.

Quote number 1 :D

Btw this is what I showed him as a reference for how I wanted my hair:


and this is what I got:


Not quite the same but I still rather like it. IT is refreshing to have hair the same colour as my eyebrows for a change. Well for now anyway I am sure I will get bored in the not too distant future and have some random urge to dye it orange or something. It actually has millions of layers in it for once too- something I ask for but never seem to get. Having said that I do normally go to the ultra cheap place in Donny....

Again, I digress.

So there I was going down the most ridiculously steep roads you have ever seen in your life in high heels on my way to the school. I live on one side of a valley so there is a fab view on the way down and a pretty stream at the bottom which was nice to see when you are used to tall buildings and tarmac. Getting up the other side was somewhat more effort but luckily, the benefit of being a girl wearing heels is that they kind of level things out up hill and make it like a normal flat walk. Hooray!

I finally arrived at Myers Grove. The streets were deserted. It started to rain. Woo.
So I trundled up the road and sat in a bus shelter waiting for home time when I could pounce on unsuspecting members of the public and pressure them via embarassment and uncomfortableness to speak. Yay!

I waited for a while.....

*******************************
Oooh someone is coming. This is my chance!
"Excuse me madam could I have a moment of your time"
*looks slightly uncomfortable*
"I am a student journalist with the University of Sheffield. Are you aware of the merger plans for Myers Grove and Wisewood."
"Oh god yes. I work there in the kitchens actually. The school does need a lot of work some of the classrooms are disgusting and....."
*Yaaaaay good quotes!*
*******************************

It was really quite easy. Just act all confident and people feel they are on the spot and that they have to say something :D

I couldn't ask the kids anything when they came out unfortunatley as they have to be over 16 or have their parents permission. Oh well. I tried asking some teachers but they wisely declined to comment so I stuck to bothering parents and a grandma stood at the bus stop. She didn't half get angry about the schools....

Six good quotes woo! Now just to get home. Er... somehow. The journey home took a lot of consulting of the A to Z. Going back up the way I came was not really an option unless I actually wanted to die of exhaustion and dehydration so I found another way home and hoped that it wasnt quite as steep.

Well it was really steep actually. I may as well have just followed the steepest roads and I would have got home. Murphy's law eh? After about half an hour of trekking up what seemed like a mountain of mining villages I saw the 52 bus. Hooray!!! I am saved! I got on happily only to find out that I was about 10 minutes from home. Oh well being a student sponger it only costs 50p.

I was home. Whats more I had harrassed members of the public, got some decent quotes and lived to tell the tale. Hooray!!

I spent all of today writing up that story and another that started out about the Council planning to build new old folks estates but turned into how they were demolishing loads of old ones because they dont meet basic standards. Kind of lucky I noticed a bit in this mountain of Council report paperwork boringess saying that several properties were under "Decent housing standards". Ho hum.

I did a bit of digging and found a phone number that went.... somewhere. I rang it anyway and it turned out it was an info line and that the "Decent housing standards" were actually a government initiatives. Therefore.... I got to write about how the council was to demolish 6 housing estates because they are not up to government health and safety standards and they dont have enough moneyt to do them up. Wahey! How incriminating....

Well I handed it in today. The deadline was 4 and I was there at 3.30. Of course the office had closed mysteriously till 4.30 so I made a makeshift cover sheet and wanged it under the door only to hear it to be blown across the office. Probably in several bits.

So yeah my assignment is now somewhere around the journalism recpetion desk I imagine. I thought it best to E-mail Amanda the receptionist to check that she actually found it. Oh god I hope so or you lose 10 marks and that is hardly fair because they decided to swan off randomly when I was told to go!

Anyways.

Moving on....

Ah the post saga I mentioned in my last post. To cut a very long story short, Keith started sending me all sorts of random junk mail through the post as a laugh. It all started with a chess piece catalogue which I admit was rather amusing. But after we found sites on the internet where you could sign each other up to recieve an array of junk of up to 30 at a time it got a little out of hand.... Roy the porter now looks at me in an entirely different way after sorting several "adult interest" catalogues into my pigeon hole....

Keiths Mum got a bit annoyed when I sent some womens underwear catalogues to Keith. She seemed a bit suspicious too hehe. Here is the total collection of general pants recieved through the mail for me:



Speaking of pants, I got a "free sample" of some frilly knickers in an underwear catalogue. I hung them on a slightly drunk corridor mates door of course. Just to confuse her a little bit in the morning....

Some of the catalogues were actually hilarious. Here are a few good slogans:

• "Making light of lighting"
  
• "The worlds leading supplier of dolls houses and miniatures" In this Dolls House Emprium catalogue are several amusing demonstrative pictures with captions such as this one: "Samantha was so proud to show off her new home to Mark". You couldn't make it up really...
  
  
  
  
• "Your watering problems solved"


• There was one that seemed like a pretty boring catalogue until I got to the back: "To celebrate 35 years of inovative and engaging tours for gay men and lesbians...."
  Ah right.
  
• "Aquaplancton. A natural product that works with nature.
  
  
  
• "The mantis garden tiller is now available at a REDUCED PRICE!!!"
  
  
  
• "Dear Miss Boyle, thank you for your enquiry about the range of ALTON'S FINEST CEDAR GREENHOUSES and FINEST SUMMERHOUSES"


• "The designer choice. Paving, aggregates, edging, walling and driveways"


• "Dear Dr Boyle, thank you for your interest in HSS and for visiting our website" This one was actually quite fun! Lots of courses about learning to use cranes and flourescent jackets and stuff!


• "Chilstone have been established for 50 years and have perfected reconstituted stone with a texture virtually indistinguishable from quarried stone."


• I also recieved 5 "adult" catalogues. *shudder*
  

So there you go. Oh yes. I did take the time to post Keith a lemon. Meg and I found this website on which this American guy posts all sorts of random things and see if they get to their destination. His lemon failed so I thought I would try....

We checked the royal mail website and it all complied minus a Perishable notice which we soon rectified:



Unfortunatley it didnt get there. Maybe the adress wore off or maybe the postman decided that he would feel a bit silly delivering a lemon. As a first class perishable item Keith would have had to sign for it. I was dying for his mum to be the only one in....

Anyway. I have talked quite enough for one day. This has taken me a good 1 1/2 hours and I am sure I have typed enough today. Tatty bye for now :D

So. Yes this is a real post. A REAL post with writing and stuff. Wow!

Its hard to say why I havent posted for ages. I guess the chrimbo holidays and my complete lack of any interesting activity didnt really lend itself to interesting discussion. Plus, I havent really felt the need to vent my spleen at all recently. Things are rather damn good actually :D

The past couple of weeks have been very eventful as uni life always is. Keith seems to be practically living at my pad haha. I have seen him about 4 times since being back which is of course fab. Why else would we call him "Mad Keith" if he didnt do riciulous things?

So yeah. I went around DOncaster for the first time and found out that it actually is really good. It is stupidly cheap, perhaps even moreso than the Union (£1 drinks and free entry to the Che Bar!). I was also introduced to "Central Park" on this glorius outing which boasted a cocktail bar complete with slightly overconfident waiters that lobbed around bottles before making the drinks. Groovy.

We all took a look at the menu. I say we, there were a few of us this time around - Me, Keith, his girlfriend Sarah, Mike, Weezy, Her boyfriend who I really should have learnt the name of by now and from Uni Megan and Lizzie. The others opted for various things - strawberry martinis and odd concoctions with ginger in them amongst other things. Me and Megan however (being both female and chocolate lovers) were drawn to something called a "chocolate monkey". Made from milk, tia maria, vodka, baileys, cream, chocolate, more cream, cream, cream and sprinkles it had to be good. We got a pitcher as it was only £2 more than a £4 glass. The guy said that you probably got about 1 or 2 more glasses out of it. Ah well that would be fine then.

Chocolate Monkey aquired. The cream on top was immense! It took us a good 5 minutes to eat our way through the squirty cream before we even got to the drink and it was gooooooood. The drink itslef tasted like a creamy chocolate milkshake with a hint of coffee and whiskey. Just a hint mind which made it rather easy to drink. As for the pitcher, we actually got about 3 glasses each from it. I didnt really feel anything but very hyper, presumably from the sugar but Megan did appear a smidge wobbly.

We have since aquired the ingrediants to make our own monkies and do so when the occasion calls. Mmmmm.

Keith and Mike are back on Thursady which will be fun. Luckily my lectures start at 12 on Friday....

Speaking of academic stuff, I volunteered myself to participate in a study of "inquiry based learning". No I am still not 100% sure what that is either. Basically I go along to an interview, two group, one individual, which are taped or videoed. I get asked to talk about my learning experiences at uni and then get some cash for doing it. Yay!

I went to my first one on Thursday and it was really quite enjoyable. I arrived early and was given a cuppa by the nice receptionist lady and talked to the guy doing the study - a really nice bloke called Bob. Bob just moved here last year from Tenessee so we talked about the correct way to make tea and how Doncaster Sheffield Robin Hood International Airport is a very misleading name and such.

I talked with Bob and 6 others for a few hours about how we like lectures to be structured, our favourite learning experiences and other such things. We were told that as long as we agree, the organisation doing the study - CILASS wants to follow us all the way through uni. Coooooool. This is the first study of its kind and is apparently going to be fairly influential and if successful could have fairly far reaching implications. Sounds rather exciting no? It is actually very exciting for me in a geeky way as I spent the last 2 years in sociology learning about how sociological experiments are carried out and the ways in which they can go wrong. I was sat there thinking "Hmmm I bet this study is going to really suffer from sample attrition" and "good thing they are mixing group with individual unstructured interviews, don't want to compromise the validity with peer expectations...." To be part of one of these studies is really facinating to see what it is like for a subject.

So yeah. £10 an interview and £50 bonus for sticking with it for a year. Yay!

Lectures are going rather well at the moment. I actually loved one of the ones we had the other day. Loved. I know! It wasnt even like it was light or anything. It was in a new module - Current Debates in Broadcasting. This basically concerns the theory and study of the broadcast media and the economical and sociological implications it has on society. For some reason I really love Media Theory. In fact last year in Media Study I was the only one that went "Yay!" every time we were told by Miss Hollywood (our name for Mrs Gail)that we would be studying news values that day.

I reckon if this Journalism thing didn't work out, I could be happy being a Media Theorist. Well, providing I could ever get a job of course.

The lecturer in this module is a total dude also. She is called Jackie Harrison and looks just like Sian Lloyd. She has an amazing line in stripey jumpers too. She kept asking us the whole way through the lecture if we liked the way she was doing things and if there was any other way we would like her to do things. Heck she even said that if any of us had any questions or would like to discuss things further we could do it over a coffee! We all love her and I have made a facebook group in her honour.

One of the required reading books for this module is one of her books and I actually can't wait for it to arrive so I can read it. Crikey.

The other new modules are pretty cool too. I also do Ethics and Journalism (contrary to popular belief there actually are some :p ),Public Administration (as boring as it sounds but at least I get a NCTJ qualification from it) and Researching and Reporting :D

We are still covering the basics of R & R like the structure of local government and such but in 3 weeks we are out there on our patches. Yay! Ooh that reminds me, I must e-mail my lecturer to request the Walkley patch....

We sepnt the last R & R session (3 hours!) looking at a Sheffield council financial audit. It was sooooo tedious! They werent lying when we were told that Journalists provide a service to the public by making the things in official papers public knowledge. If I didnt have to learn how, or if I wasnt getting paid, there is not much that would make me look through another one of those bad boys! I cannot see any member of the public going to the trouble of requesting one of these monsters and then reading it for fun. After two hours I was actually finding it hard to stay awake so I went for a 5 minute walk. I did manage to get a good story from it about how the Council was in £40 million of debt when it had £38 million uncollected tax from the poll tax (This was an audit from 1993 may I point out!). Gotcha!

There has been a ton of snow for the past few days. It has just about melted now which is rather disapointing but I had a good mess about last night with Megan, Rachel and her boyfriend Jo(e). Rachel is a snowboarder so she took her board with her and had a go down the hill opposite us. I had a go sitting on it which was fun, but riding on the tray we found was even more fun! We then went on to Roselyn road (very steep for those that dont know it, it is almost impossible to walk down in high heels) for some good falling over action :D

After eating an alarming amount of snow when out and about, Megan suggested we should try some with some blackcurrant. Um. Ok then. So we got a container from inside and took the top off the freshly fallen snow on a wall. After voicing my concerns over eating more than a bit of water that had fallen out of the sky, Megan reasurred me that rainwater is practically pure and that it is only bad for you if there is loads of pollution in the air. Hoping that there was less pollution in the air than your average city I watched Megan forget all about blackcurrant and pour two caps of tia maria in to the snow to make a satisfying slush.



Never eat yellow snow? Actually it was rather nice, particularly when baileys was added. So we sat eating snow out and alcohol out of a box with a spoon whilst watching Xena Warrior princess on the internet. We are that cool.

Speaking of the internet, I must urge you all to go to www.alluc.org right now! There are hundereds of tv shows on there that you can watch. Wow! So far I have watched all of sugar rush, a large portion of the X Men cartoon series (yeah I know but it was my favourite as a kid), a couple of films, Bill Bailey shows, Never Mind the Buzzcocks, QI and others. Woo! Many of the series' are complete too which is fab. Its not illegal to watch them either, simply illegal for the brave fools that post the vids on the net. The site is even legal too as it only has links to the videos on other sites. Could it be better? Well no actually, I saw 12 episodes of the Family Ness back to back!

I have just realised that I have neglected to mention what is probably the most important thing that has happened recently which is that I HAVE A HOUSE FOR NEXT YEAR!!!! Wooooo! Not only that but it is amazing!

It is the second house that we looked at and it is simpy immense. It is clean and in excellent condition, there is everything you need - a new fitted kitchen, a fridge freezer, a hoover, internet in every room, a patio, an AMAZING view of the south hills aaaaaaaand it is only £45 a week! OMG! That is amazing!!!! The ones in Crookes are £55 for a crapy house that when we viewed it looked like it had been ransaked it was that messy and it had a big bong and some hash on the table. Tasteful.

But this is a dream house in a lovely area with a lovely local pub down the road (with the all important pool tables and quiz nights) and the landlord is really nice. Megan knows one of the people that lives there at the moment so we can easily interrogate her at some point.

We signed the contract the day after we saw that house hehe. It is quite possible we would have lost the will to live if somebody else got in there. We did look at another house that day just to reassure ourselves that our house (for that is how we were referring to it at that point!) was actually the best student house in Sheffield. It so was. We had assigned bedrooms before we had even requested the contract!

So there you go. About 1 months worth in a post. There is more to come however about a rather comical abuse of the postal service that I may post tonight. It will be a biggie though as it has about a ton of photos to illustrate the story. So yeah. Toodle pip for now!

Again too much has happened to write a proper blog but perhaps I can give you some highlights of this birthday weekend :D

• Keith made what is possibly the greatest cake ever to be made. Ever. [Look above!] Made with 2 Kg butter, 1 Kg Sugar, 5 whole bottles of food colouring and 2 big packs of smarties. Mr Keith "I take a tray of pro plus at once" was shaking after half a slice. I didnt sleep till 7am....


Playing slaps with Keith at 3am, Keith moving has hand and me punching the wall. Keith subsequently threw a cushion at my head which I failed to notice and hit my head against the wall. Hardcore!


Exploring the halls at 4am and finding radnomers having showers. At that time? Why!


Going to play pool at 5am in the Junior Common Room becuase we had nothing else to do and werent going to sleep after that cake! Jim the porter came and asked us what we were doing "Hmmmm. Watching the Ashes!" He seemed to think that people might actually get up at that time to watch boring cricket!


Keith taking Becky's phone when she was asleep, changing the language to Slovakian, setting a yearly alarm for the next day entitled "Ho!" and taking various photos of his knees made to look like his derrier. When Becky found these pictures in the morning she came to me to express her trauma to which I replied "Yeah I was there when he took them..."


Going to Northern Soul - the best chippie in Sheffield at 1am because we felt like chips.


Scott programming into my LED display dogtag "Call me 4 sex [Keiths mobile number]" and then handing it to Keith. Keith was more than happy to wear this and yelled at various taxis as they drove past "CAAAAAAALL MEEEEE!" whilst holding up the tag. No calls yet...


Going to the grindstone to play pool and Keith finding a way to make the pool table with the whole ball rack lifted out of it to work. When balls were potted they just were shot at your feet! It did mean as many games as you like though...


Mike getting drunk for the first time and telling us how much he loved us all and then requesting whether anyone had a monacle. Actually I did!

Listening to Kat after she had drunk a lot of wine and became amazingly articulate and thoughtful! The newfound oracle managed to keep me spellbound for over half an hour just on the merits of her necklace. How amazing! She felt rather ill later...
Mike falling asleep in various painful looking positions and being stepped over in the night by people that actuakky needed the corridor for travelling purposes.
Being given a massive bag of goodies by Megan and Lizzie with amazing things inside including cardboard crowns, irn bru, vimto bars, boot slippers, 3 packs of chesty cough medcine (it was on offer!) and modelling clay!! We then proceeded to make a fortress complete with snail!

Fun was had by all :)

As well as this I have just checked my facebook group "Jenny L froze my soul with her eyes". This is a group on facebook (Think MySpace but with everybody you know obsessively checking it twice a day!) that I created about one of our canteen workers. Her name is Jenny L and she is so darn scary! She must only be 5"0 tall but she is constantly in a stormy mood and is genuinely intimidating! I made a group about how scary she was and sent a few links to my friends. Now there are 63 members and randomers are emailing me about it! One guy even went as far as to take a really good photo of her (something which I have so far failed to do - she is too scary to get close to) and stick it on there!

Wowzer.

Well that'll be all for today, must get around to doing this songwriting presentation...

I wrote this entry last night as it was too late to go on the netty but I felt obliged to write something. I guess was in a very pensieve mood to make working at McDonalds into a metaphor of personal growth! God I was a bit gushy wasnt I?

Well even if it is a load of poo it did come from the heart at the time - and how! It is about 2000 words long. My goodness I wrote more in an hour than I managed to write for my English project at AS. :s

Hehe. Well here it is anyways:


I recon today is actually the final day of my childhood.

It just makes so much sense...

Today I have severed the final tie that binds me to the life I have lived here in Doncaster for the past 18 years. I am talking of course about finishing my last shift at my job at McDonalds today. It was a strange shift actually with me having the unusual job of window 2 - the money taking window at which usually only newbies and spare parts are chosen to do the job. I guess that is kind of symbolic of the way of things there. We are all but little seedlings to begin with lost within the great expanse of the earth, thrown in at the deep end with not a clue of what to expect, what to do, what to take in, what to ignore, what to become. We are pointed in the direction of the surface by the more experienced people, but the journey itself is only one you can make on your own.

Every moment you are there you take in tiny details - exactly how many millimetres to move your hand to stab in £20.00 in one swift movement, adding or taking an extra word in to your set customer repertoire for maximum efficiency, trying out new ways in which chunks of information can be recalled in bigger and better ways, figuring out which rules are there to be kept and which are simply formalities. Every little bit of what you do you take in and use and so working there becomes the sum of your experience. We who have done this week in, week out can give the new seedlings pointers but there is so much to take in it is simply not possible to pass your knowledge on and so on my last shift I was assigned something simple to do. Perhaps to allow myself to feel like I have achieved something, to remember how far I have come from the meek and lost little soul I began as.

I don’t think I made a single mistake today - surely a record in itself. I even spotted that a £20 note was fake - something I have never faced before. The shift was strangely easy and quiet for me. Things just looked and felt different somehow. As I saw the tears welling in Kirstie’s eyes I began to wonder why that was. Was it that she was simply frustrated at the things going wrong on the job for her - after all we all get emotional on shift when there is so much pressure and one thing after another goes wrong. I wondered if perhaps she was upset on that level but also because she knew that this is what her life had become, and perhaps what it always would be. After all she is at uni but that so often does not help out the managers at McDonalds and they end up just keeping their jobs where they are. Maybe she was crying for the future, maybe for the present or maybe for the past that she looked back on so fondly. Maybe she just had a moment in which she could see where her life was going, straight down the line, on a train she cant get off if she leaves it much longer.

Maybe it was just something else. I guess I will never know.

What I do know is that the past few weeks have been the most bizarre and extreme of my life. Everybody and everything looks so different as to how it did just 2 months ago. My life is like a new life - like I am on the path to the life I have always wanted, becoming the person I always wanted to be. What does it do to a person when everything a person has ever known - their whole way of life suddenly ends after 16 years? Since the age of 2 at nursery it has all been about learning - understanding, preparation for something bigger - infant school, junior school, secondary school, sixth form, university. Everything is just a step to the next thing. Learn, test, succeed, repeat. It is the life I know and the life I am accustomed to and now that is just not there any more.

They say you don’t grow up till you leave home and I think they are right. How can you know who you are until you have no constraints and no responsibilities to hold back who and what you are? I think that is where I am now.

Its like fate has made the transition for me - as I came towards the end of my school life and had nothing to challenge me, to keep me ticking over from late June to late September, fate saw fit to deal me a helping hand in an ugly disguise. My mother fell ill and suddenly I had so many new challenges to face. For the first time I was the one in control. I truly had the responsibility of others and myself.

My Mum in her illness became dependent on me for the first time which at first I found very shocking and upsetting. Then as my Dad had to go away to work I had to assume responsibility for all the things I had never even had a taste of before. Firstly I was truly responsible for myself for the first time - of course I don’t answer specifically to anybody. My parents have always granted me generous amounts of choice and do not breathe down my neck at all. I do of course have to bear them in mind daily by coming in at a sensible time so as not to disturb them, keeping things in places where they wont get in the way for them, not doing things that would make them worry excessively about me. The moment my Dad left the drive in his car that was gone. I would look after myself and answer only to myself for the first time ever. A liberating thing indeed.

I assumed responsibility for my lovely cats Ollie and Oscar. Suddenly I couldn’t just pet them when I felt like it, I was in the thick of it cleaning up things that before I didn’t have to imagine, dealing with mangled animal corpses, getting up early so that to feed them and let them out and worst of all getting them inside at night, God that was a challenge! You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to get a cat through a door if they didn’t want to come inside. I resorted several times to leaving trails of treats, sleeping in the living room with the patio door open and a sword in my hand just in case or simply grabbing them and taking a good clawing.

The housework was certainly an eye opener but a good one. I now love ironing - there is nothing quite as therapeutic as gently working out the creases in a piece of clothing and thus restoring it to perfection, especially when listening to your favourite songs with the bass on full, rattling your teeth and singing like a banshee!

I guess most importantly I was left in charge of Mum. Of course she can look after herself but I am sure that having me or anybody come and visit her when she was feeling truly terrible must have helped her out. I was now a commuter as well!

In all I actually enjoyed my new lifestyle being a full time housewife, mother to two mischievous little cats and taking care of my Mum. It was really very liberating. I love independence and that was it in its purest form.

I also discovered just how brilliant all of my friends are. They were all so supportive but also stepped back and left me loads of space for me to just do my own thing. Spending so much time with Keith was certainly an eye opener. I really got to know him so much better, like I used to and we are now really great friends again rather than the occasional recro buddies we were becoming.

Man I love all of my friends so much. In fact I just want to thank them all right now!
Tina - you and me can talk about anything in the world and you know that I would climb mountains for you matey! You and me really are two peas from the same pod even if we didn’t realise it before! Peace to you imzadi.

Keith - You are my rock. You always go out of your way to help me and everybody else out and you are so damned funny! You are my 3rd bro! Could anybody else really just end up living at my house for 5 days without us noticing?

Kat - You know me so well you often know me better than myself! You always see through the façade and can tell what I am thinking, which although can be scary you always say exactly what I need to hear. You tell it like it is when nobody else is brave enough but you are never cruel. You give me a metaphorical slap when I need to come down! Thanks for being so honest and so supportive.

Scott - I haven’t known you long, but in this short space I you have been really supportive and a great laugh. You aren’t just Kats boyfriend I consider you one of my close friends and really like spending time with you. Although you sometimes go into more detail than I would like in some areas (heehee), I love your honesty and generosity. Thanks :)

Mike - Don’t you just love the internet? Without it I doubt you and me would be good friends! I know you probably think that our conversations are a bit one directional but that is not true at all. All of the things that worry you worry me too, and by attempting to give you advise you confront my demons . You always listen to what I have to say even when I talk shit. Who else reads my blog regularly! I really value you as a friend as you are always there for me when I need to talk. In fact, by listening to my moans and by reading my blog you probably know a side to me that maybe nobody else does. Thank you :)

Becky - Although you missed a lot of what has happened to me recently, you still have provided me all the support you possibly could. You offer me support in a different way that other people often forget. When things get tough, you always need a sense of normality and some stability. Without this, how could we keep going? I remember when things got tough for you a couple of years back you told me that you just wished people would stop treating you differently and let you keep going and working through your pain and I really empathised with you. Thanks for doing the same for me J you are my oldest friend and so you know me in ways that other people cannot. Thanks for sticking with me all these years :D

I love you all guys so much!

I will stop this sentimentality as it seems like a letter of goodbye and it isn’t. I wont let it be.
To come full circle, I think today was the last day of my childhood as not only have I left my last responsibility outside of my family, my Mum should (fingers crossed) be out of hospital tomorrow to make the rest of her recovery at home and thus that concludes that challenge.
I feel like I have grown up now, that I have life experience. People have commented that I seem more confident, more independent. I feel I have more perspective. I guess it just shows in the little things. I know I certainly surprised a few people at work a couple of weeks ago when I started speaking my mind more and being assertive. I guess when your work is just a small part of your life you treat it as such.

I am ready now for life. Before I thought I could do it. Now I know I can. If I can just keep in this mindset I know that I can go far in my career and achieve everything I want to achieve.

Farewell childhood. You have been a beautiful adventure full of little joys.
Enter life, what shall be an epic journey mine for the shaping…

Lets do it. Lets live.

Here is todays lazy post:

TELL ME ABOUT YOURSELF - The Survey
Name:	Lottie/Boylio/Chaz/Excuse me young man
Birthday:	Most years (unless I forget) 26th november
Birthplace:	Sunny sunny Donny
Current Location:	"The office" - really a collection of the crap that wouldnt fit anywhere else
Eye Color:	blue
Hair Color:	At the moment "Red Planet" but naturally dark brown
Height:	5"4 and 3/4 (the 3/4 is very important)
Right Handed or Left Handed:	Right handed although as Becky noted, left handed when eating crisps...
Your Heritage:	half English 1/8th Irish 3/8ths Scottish if your being pedantic
The Shoes You Wore Today:	Just me furby slippers today I had a quiet day in :)
Your Weakness:	Jaffa cakes, chocolate, guitars, most things deep fried
Your Fears:	Big sticks, my burglar alarm, big ass spiders that run at me at 1 in the morning
Your Perfect Pizza:	Thin and crispy ham and mushroom mmmmm
Goal You Would Like To Achieve This Year:	Learn to play the drum fill on "Assassin" by Muse
Your Most Overused Phrase On an instant messenger:	*nods*
Thoughts First Waking Up:	Make the beeping stop! Repeat every 10 minutes
Your Best Physical Feature:	Erm. Eyes I guess, thats what Kat comments on most
Your Bedtime:	These days pick a number lol. Between 11pm and 3am
Your Most Missed Memory:	The days when me and Keith used to run around the playground at primary school hiding from the evil dinnerladies hehe
Pepsi or Coke:	Diet Coke with ice and a slice of lemon
MacDonalds or Burger King:	Well I both hate McDonalds and work there so I guess BK
Single or Group Dates:	Single mostly
Lipton Ice Tea or Nestea:	What the chuff is Nestea?
Chocolate or Vanilla:	Thats not even a choice! Who would pick Vanilla? Tsk
Cappuccino or Coffee:	Cappuccino although a mocha frappoccino would be ideal
Do you Smoke:	no
Do you Swear:	occasionally
Do you Sing:	Much to the distaste of others :)
Do you Shower Daily:	Yes unless I am really late
Have you Been in Love:	Maybe....
Do you want to go to College:	As in Uni? Yeah
Do you want to get Married:	Just for legal reasons, just a bit of paper really
Do you belive in yourself:	Yeah it scares some people! Quite rightly I would think...
Do you get Motion Sickness:	No
Do you think you are Attractive:	I aint Angelina I aint Jade
Are you a Health Freak:	Hell no I love food too much!
Do you get along with your Parents:	Yeah
Do you like Thunderstorms:	I love them unless they are in the middle of the night and wont let me sleep
Do you play an Instrument:	Yeah Keyboard/piano/drums a bit of guitar/bass/accordion/spoons
In the past month have you Drank Alcohol:	Yes
In the past month have you Smoked:	no
In the past month have you been on Drugs:	Just garlic supplements hehe
In the past month have you gone on a Date:	yes
In the past month have you gone to a Mall:	yes
In the past month have you eaten a box of Oreos:	A box of what now?
In the past month have you eaten Sushi:	No but I really want to try it
In the past month have you been on Stage:	Yes at the gig
In the past month have you been Dumped:	no
In the past month have you gone Skinny Dipping:	no
In the past month have you Stolen Anything:	yes some "Do not use" tape and some toxic sanitiser from work
Ever been Drunk:	Not really just tipsy
Ever been called a Tease:	yes today in fact hehe
Ever been Beaten up:	Nah they would be too scared of my many teeth
Ever Shoplifted:	no
How do you want to Die:	By monkies!
What do you want to be when you Grow Up:	An ice cream lady!
What country would you most like to Visit:	Korea (South that is!)
In a Boy/Girl..
Favourite Eye Color:	brown
Favourite Hair Color:	any
Short or Long Hair:	anything but extremes
Height:	more than 4 feet, less than 8
Weight:	less than the amount it takes to be bulletproof
Best Clothing Style:	Casual
Number of Drugs I have taken:	0
Number of CDs I own:	20 but tond and tons of MP3s
Number of Piercings:	2 (ears)
Number of Tattoos:	0
Number of things in my Past I Regret:	Cant really think of anything. I guess thats good!
CREATE YOUR OWN! - or - GET PAID TO TAKE SURVEYS!

Blah blah blaaaaaaah blah blah

Sorry, just felt like doing that for some reason...

Well much has happened since my last post - Me and Dean are together, Mum should be out by the end of the week, I have developed a strange liking for ironing, I am now in the rock night band full time (now named the Loose Cannons) and have an upcoming paid gig (paid woo!) at the Park Hotel in town and today I went to Tae Kwon Do for the first time after intending to go for years.

*Breath in*

Full couple of weeks then!

Well I guess I should start with the Tae Kwon Do as it is that that may stop me from completing todays blog! Tina phoned me yesterday and asked if I wanted to go with her and Peter her brother so I just said yes. And why not?

I arrived today to see some people hard at work through the window. We went inside and talked to the receptionist who pointed in the direction of the people working away and said "Just go on in and join the class". Oh my.

We warmed up for a fair while doing jumps, squats, situps, stretches, pressups and running - lots and lots of running. Me and T and Peter too were completely bushed by this point as were several of the older women. Luckily we got on to learning some simple moves.

I now know jabs, hooks, uppercuts , straights, backhands, straight and roundhouse kicks. How fun! Unfortunately for us three, when it got on to training with pads it was continous training for everybody! We had to line up in two lines facing the two instructors with pads. The teacher showed us a combination he wanted us to do on the pads - the person at the front hit the pads and the rest of us practised in time until he shouted "CHANGE"! At this point we all had to drop and do some evil exercises like 5 press ups or 3 squat thrusts and move forward so the next person got a go on the pads. That was kindof it really. The instructor seemed impressed with mine and Tinas roundhouses. Tina had done a couple of lessons before, I however have learnt everything I know from Tekken and thought best not to say so!

I was knackered! Hehe!

It was actually really enjoyable even though us three were aching too much to walk without complaining loudly. And I was sooo hungry afterwards! When me and T went to Tesco for some pasta sauce I was eying up the sandwhiches on the conveyor belonging to a buxom blonde woman! haha

My ankles are still pretty wierd. They have the "good" ache about them - you know when you have exercised and you feel the burn afterwards that tells you there is gonna be some muscle growth overnight. Damn those pivoting roundhouses! hehe

Anyhoo I should be going back on Thursday all being well :)

Me and T had an interesting chat the other night in her car. She had just taken me home and we were having the best chat in ages about everything - you know the deep stuff :) In the end she just parked up and we ended up talking for about 3 hours without noticing, that is surely a personal record... Anyway we were both pretty tired so we were talking with our seats tilted right back like beds. It was cold outside so the windows were steaming up and me and T kept on laughing - mostly at T's feet that kept on peeping the horn accidentally heehee. Tina was wearing tan coloured short shorts and was resting her legs on the steering wheel...

You should have seen the look on the blokes face that walk past hahaha! I dont think any explanation is necessary... Needless to say me and T just laughed harder making the suspension wobble further...

Me and Keith went to look at synths the other day as we decided that that should be our first band purchase after a PA. We found a MicroKorg in Electro that was just... imense

It was the damn coolest thing I have layed my hands upon in a long long time. In a few button stabs I was making well ace noises that sounded like the Sugarbabes or the Eurithmics or something. Sooo ace. And the thing that made it uber uber ace was *drumroll* a VOCODER!!!

WOWOWOWOWOW! Get it! Get it now!

For those of you that are not techy freaks allow me to explain. A vocoder is a voice changer that allows you to sound like a robot, like you are underwater, like you are on helium, quite literally anything you want as analogue synths can quite genuinely create ANY sound. I cannot tell you the feeling of elation as the synth burped back at me in a robotic voice "KEEEEIIIITH IIIIS GAAAAY!" Oh the childish hilarity! I want one soooooo much it hurts! Just the things the band could play with that thing... It would be the best. Oooooooh!

Other musical news - I have all of the Muse scores back that I lost when the hardrive of my last OC blew up, and when I say all I mean ALL. I now have the score to every song off Muse's first 4 albums *swoon*. Yay! I can now divert my time once more to learning the best songs to play on guitar and KB yay! I also learnt Supermassive Black Hole today which is a great song. If I havent already mentioned it I have TICKETS FOR MUSE ON THE 18th NOVEMBER EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!

Sorry bout the caps there but I think it is necessary to outline just how amazing that is going to be. Put it this way, the first time I saw Muse live on TV at Glastonbury I sat there and time and time again kept on saying "oh my God that is so fucking ace!" to myself at 1 in the morning - no mean feat. It was so mind bendingly amazing it was all I could think about for days. I subsequently bought their Live DVD despite the fact I already had half of the songs on their corresponding live CD and oh my God that is too the work of genius. Absaloute perfection. Matt Bellamy is a Guitaring God.

So seeing them live is quite probably going to be (and I say this with no irony) the greatest moment of my life. As one Muse fan once wrote after seeing them "the clocks turned back and the year returned to zero, it was THAT good". I think they will probably be right. After all I was high for days after seeing The Corrs and even though they were brilliant and I love them to bits, Muse are in another league of amazingness. Again and again they pull it out of the bag and become even better. Their latest album "Black Holes and Revalations" is absalutely bloody brilliant!

My God I am a Museaholic....

Well I think that will do for now as an update and heap of praise (again) hehe.

Farewell for now :)

Well I think this will be a brief round up of stuff as I havent blogged for ages. Maybe I will do it in bullet points to make it a bit quicker:

• I played the rock night gig and it was proper ace! Probably better than one I have done before - the crowd were up and bouncing - even moshing much to the distaste of Jarvis who made a quite excruciating lecture on seat jiving. I think our ace frontman Luke has videod it so I will try and get a copy and stick it on here so you can all lookie yay!
• Mum isnt very well and wasnt when I did the post on "highs and lows" but she is much better than she was. She looks like she should make a full recovery though so fingers crossed.
• I spent the last two weeks on me todd hence the lack of blogging - I was too busy getting all domesticated hehe. I now rather enjoy washing and ironing and dont mind tidying up. Thinking about it i ay i wa on my own but i think i only spent 2 or 3 days on my own. Friends have visited mot days and Keith came and lived for a bout 5 day hehe! It was a very good experience actually I think I have gained a lot more responsibility. I have decided to see it as a right of passage now I have left school :)

Thinking about it that is basically the last two weeks! Hehe. It has all gine pretty quickly because I have been kept busy :)

Well thats all for the quick update at the mo, post more later.

Byeeeeee

I did it. I asked out Mr GSOH!

I was suffieciently tired and spaced out to just go for it. I was talking to him after I had finished my shift and thought - "If I dont do this now I dont think I will ever get around to it. What am I afraid of? He could only say no. Do it! Do it now!"

So I did :)

You know what he said?


"Maybe...."

Hmm. Is that a maybe yes bout you caught me off guard, maybe no but I dont want to say no and watch you crash and burn or simply a maybe? I am not too sure. I told him to think about it and get back to me.

I was strangely calm outside of my comfort zone actually. I am known as the passive one who lets others do their thing and I just watch from the side lines. Getting out their and just asking somebody out really wasnt as hard as I thought, more girls should do it! On the other hand it means I run the risk of meeting "old Charlotte" again. What a heap of complications that is!

The thing is, as I got older I became more passive and less het up about the things that most people get bothered about. I became more mellow and I think it is an antidote to the way things used to be. As a kid I was incedibly big headed and thought I was the bees knees. I was bloody annoying basically. As I got to HH I found out that the world was not at my feet permanently and that not everybody will like you right away. Especially if you are a geeky, podgey kid with stupid hair and a superiority complex.

I gradually learned some humility and began to get along properly with everybody, not just the few people I used to know. As a result I became more placid and unwilling to assert my authority on anything that didnt really matter as I just come across as big headed. I have tried having little confident spats evey now and again. I dont think I am big headed but I cant be sure. What I do know is that when I act confident people percieve me as big headed whether I am or not so... I prefer to keep being passive.

This is partly why taking control and getting out of my box makes me uncomfortable - because I know that if I go the whole hog and behave how I feel comfortable when being confident, I blag peoples heads and get on their nerves!

Meh. Oh well I will find a balance.

Ooooooh!

The Rock Night is go! Woooo! I thought it died a death after I heard nothing for ages but it turns out that everything has a big fat green light over it. The lead guitarist Kieran is A-MAZING! He bangs out Slash solos as if they were a Nirvana Riff! Everything is so effortless to him despite the fact he is lightning fast! Adam Docker is the Rhythm guitarust and he gets some lovely tones out of his guitar. If only he and Keith would practise properly we would be awesome!

Where do I fit in? I am not sure. So far I have only used the school drum kit which is an absolute piece of...... anyway it is not in a good way. All the heads are splitting, the snare sounds like a rain stick and the hats dont go "tch" they go "TAH!" awful. I really thought my kit was poor until I listened to it. *shudder*. I mean they spend thousands on PCs that they dont need for kids to do no work on and pull the keys off but spare the music department a couple of hundred to make theor kit into a respectable sonic instrument and the board go all moany. Stupid old...

Anyways I have only played the school kit and my keyboard (tone 192 - Drum Kit 2!) along wiht the band so I couldnt tell you how well I am doing. Heres hoping though, after all I have never played drums with a band before, just me CD player and I aint the one that has to keep the time with my CD player!

I havent met the singer yet but I am told by Keith that he is really good - and Keith is sparing with his praise! He must be good!

Well, I must cut this short and dash as Mum needs to disconect me so she can put the cats to bed. Later :)