The Quiet One

Growth

2012-02-06T22:59:00.000Z

I put off writing this for a while. And by a while, I mean a few months. And by a few months, I mean since November time.

It's difficult to talk and write about moving on, especially when you never chose to do so. Yesterday, I wrote about the 'hostility of G block'. G block is the building in which my friends and I have based ourselves during the college day for a good year and a half now. We started off on the floor next to the automatic doors in B block, an idea that was cut drastically short one day for reasons that are still unknown to me.

So we moved to G. It was our comfort zone. It became the place we hid in, the place we cried in when things were too much, the place we laughed in, and the place we did nothing in. It was familiar and it was nice.

And then year thirteen arrived, bringing a bucket load of fresh pressures and expectations that, for those of us applying to university, we had to meet and exceed. Some people rise to that challenge, some do not. That's OK, it's down to personal preference and I am certainly not saying that some are right, while some are wrong. But, when people are making conflicting decisions and acting differently, conflict starts to appear. At first, it's slow and almost lazy in formation. It establishes itself in snide comments and pointless arguments. But, like anything bad, if left untouched, untreated or unnoticed, it gets worse.

Because, you see, much like with a family, a partner, or anybody else you spend most of your life around, you start to notice all of the irritating little details that you could really do without the presence of in your life. Somebody's too 'attention-seeking', another person 'needs to watch what they say', other people 'feel like they can't speak anymore', and others 'have no consideration for the fact that we were here first'. And I'm going to admit something...

I can't deal with it anymore. So I'm moving on.

I still love my friends. Of course I do. But I've reached that point where the atmosphere on a lunchtime or a breaktime is too damaging to me for it to be worth spending large amounts of time in G block anymore.

Everybody seems to have split off into little sub-groups, and I seem to have drifted away from all of them. I'm kind of OK with this, though. I spend most of my free time in the language lab now, and I've found that I work better and my grades have improved just by being in there more. This does, however, come with the downside that I rarely see my friends anymore. It's true that there are the lab folks - namely Sophie, Billie, Wallis, Liz, Jess, Cory, etc etc - and they are all awesome people in their own rights. Some (Sophie and Jess), I have known for longer than others (Billie, Wallis, Liz, Cory), but our lab chats and our general shared interests mean that there is something to focus on. Jess and I: N, S, Starbucks Tuesdays, Josh and Josh, Poland, etc etc. Sophie and I: People who DD (cringe!), favourite woman, the face-eaters, etc etc.

Yet, with the G block friends, I've found that only a few of the friendships tend to keep afloat. Fern and I share car journeys on a daily basis, Eliza and Sarah usually join us on the way home. I see Katie quite a lot as we share a few free periods together, and I see Will more than most people (which is odd, because we never knew each other before this college year).

I can't lie, it's hard to strike the balance between two groups. It's hard to view it objectively, in terms of my grades and general emotional wellbeing, rather than subjectively. It's easy to let the guilt about 'not being present enough anymore' consume me. I wonder if it's my own fault that I don't belong there anymore. I wonder if my involvement in Amnesty, SOS, college magazine, etc etc, has stopped my friendships from growing. But, then, these things have all helped new friendships to grow.

So, I'm muddling through at the moment. There is only one person who knows how I truly feel about all of this, and she knows how much I love her for sticking by me through all of this confusion. I don't really have a conclusion or a happy ending to this post, only that I know this is just the beginning. Of what? I don't know, but I'm sure I'm going to find out...

Besos ♥
Rachel

Sunday Catch-Up #3

2012-02-05T23:26:00.000Z

How is it already Sunday again? Seriously, how? This week has been nothing special and dragged on a lot. Highlights have definitely come at the end of the week...

I spent most of Friday in the lab catching up with Jess (sort of). Apparently, I'm the 'focus' of her and Natalie's joint art project, so she followed me around taking photos of me for a few hours. The photo to the left is one of the photos she took.

I also spent a lot of Friday, as I do every Friday, with the lab people. It's fair to say that they are quickly becoming some of my favourite people. It's nice to escape the hostility of G block (seriously, whenever I'm there everybody seems to just be hating everybody else [sorry, but that needed saying]) and spend time with like-minded people. Liz and I did our usual Friday music quiz and Beckie (Jess' cousin, ironically) joined in as she sometimes does. We also escaped to the LRC for English, which was an hour spent doing nothing worth mentioning for me.

Here's also a video of Miss Dusty experiencing a walk in the snow for the first time in her 2(ish) years of life. We were a little shocked, but she enjoyed it rather a lot.

The voices you can hear are mine and my mum's - she was very concerned about my cardigan getting all snowy.

That's pretty much it for this week. It's half term starting on the 10th so hopefully I'll have more time to write - I have a lot to say at the moment, my only problem is finding enough time to sit down and make the thoughts make sense.

Besos ♥
Rachel

Sunday Catch-Up #2

2012-01-29T19:38:00.000Z

So, it's been two weeks since my last blog post. I took a proper break from it for a while in the run up to my two exams this week but they're over now and I'm back and blogging :)

Other than revision, there are only two events worth mentioning this week...

Tuesday 24th January - Wakefield Mayor's Awards :)
One of my English teachers from last year, Jonathan, nominated me for this. I won a Community Silver award for the work I do with the Amnesty group, college magazine and the charity fundraising I've done in college. It was a lovely night and the stories of some of the 'Individual' award winners were so touching. It was so thoughtful of Jonathan to nominate me and did mean a lot. I plan on finding him this week to thank him. I also thought it was very appropriate that Wakefield's coat of arms (seen in the photo) was on display everywhere and the motto was ''persevere and prosper'' considering some of the stories we heard.

Saturday 28th January - Jess' 18th Party :)
It was my lovely friend Jess' 18th birthday on Thursday and she had a ~~rather large house party ;)~~ small gathering at her house last night to celebrate. Below are a few photos... But, firstly, a few highlights: Sophie deciding she needed to slide off the sofa and onto the floor; Matt wondering if he might have put his pizza into his pocket; the great language debate held by a bunch of languages students.

Besos ♥
Rachel

Mid-January Favourites & Sunday Catch-Up

2012-01-15T14:41:00.000Z

Happy Sunday :) I thought today I'd try something different and blog about my favourite mid-January things. I've also put together a collage of recent photos for something that I intend to make a recurring feature called 'Sunday Catch-Up'. I don't have much time to write during the week, so I thought that if I don't, I can do something regular on a Sunday to compensate for it.

So, here are my mid-January favourites...

Make-up products
1. The Body Shop Colourglide Lip Colour in shade 48, Soft Peony. I picked this up just after Christmas when I was looking for a nice pink lipstick that wasn't too bright but was still very obviously pink. I trailed around all of the stores that sell lipsticks in Wakefield and found nothing that I liked enough to warrant spending money on, then tried out The Body Shop at the last minute. I found many pink shades in here and took a liking to this one, shade 48/Soft Peony. It's not *too* bright and its staying power is quite good. I think it was £8.
2. Urban Decay Eyeshadow in Sin. This is my favourite shade in the Naked palette, and has gone straight in as my number one eyeshadow shade. The only shadow I own that I could potentially see becoming just as favourable is MAC Patina. I find that Sin is a good base for any colour-combination that I'm likely to use on an everyday basis. I got this single shadow for Christmas because I hit pan on it in the palette :(
3. The Body Shop Lip Balm in Pink Grapefruit. I owned this several years ago, and I also had the shower gel, but the lip balm lived in my school bag and I never seemed to use it. It ended up with things stuck in it and it just became unusable. I repurchased at the same time as buying the lipstick, and have been using it a lot during the day since. I absolutely adore the smell and it's not too greasy.
4. Nails Inc polishes in Madison Avenue (full) and Holland Park Road (mini). I also received these for Christmas and am in love with both shades. Madison Avenue is definitely my current favourite polish, with Holland Park Road taking second place. Madison Avenue is the perfect deep green, and Holland Park Road is what I would describe as 'alternative purple' - it's not fully purple, but purple with undertones of maroons and pinks. Both of these take two coats on my nails.

Randoms
1. Books. The first book I've been loving this month is Jon Richardson's 'It's Not Me, It's You!'. The book itself had me laughing hysterically (and several people can vouch for this) in public, but also contemplating life and love and everything in between. It's also made me even more excited to see him live in March (woo!). I've also been reading The Complete Winnie the Pooh. My mum bought me the latest film for Christmas and after watching, I dug out the book. Winnie the Pooh will never get old. Ever.
2. Jewellery. The necklace in the top-right corner is one of my favourite ever purchases. I bought it in the autumn at some point and it has become one of my everyday pieces. I love the different colours in it and how it changes colour in the light. The second necklace, the black butterfly, is another piece that has become one of my 'everyday wears'. Both necklaces came from Accessorize and I bought them at the same time. The butterfly actually has a proper butterfly print on the other side, but I wear mine backwards because I just like the black silhouette of the butterfly. I often pair up both necklaces too. The pink rose ring is handmade. I've been enjoying wearing it as a 'statement' piece recently. I bought the ring backs from Hobbycraft, and the rose itself came from Yum Yum Beads in Leeds.
3. Stationery. A bit of an odd one, but still, we'll go with it. I've been loving using my document holders from Artbox this month a lot. I have three with Rilakkuma designs on them. I bought the first one years ago when I visited the Covent Garden store with my family, and I'm currently using it to house all of my spare lined paper. The one pictured is my Spanish oral exam notes folder. The second picture is of my neon pink (my camera washed the colour out no matter which settings I used) heart stickers from Paperchase. The pack cost £1.99 (I believe, don't quote me on that though) and there are several sheets of the small stickers. I just thought they were quite cute and they seem to come in handy for random things - like sticking down an envelope that wouldn't close yesterday :) The third photo is of Sharpie highlighters. I'm mainly mentioning these because I've been without proper highlighters since starting college again in September and my one green highlighter was driving me insane. These have small tips, so if you're highlighting small text (like I do because my handwriting is very small) it's all nice and neat, unlike if using a highlighter with a thick tip. I use these everyday without fail.

And here is my Sunday catch-up...

1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 13, 14 & 15 Last night was my friend Katie's 18th party (Katie is the girl I'm with in #1). Pretty much everybody stayed right until the end and had a good time :) Highlights included 'the balloon game' (everybody's played that, right? Where you have to keep the balloon off the floor?) and watching Eliza completely fail at the Macarena.

2 We spent a bit of time checking over Miss Peanut yesterday afternoon after I thought she didn't look herself. My mum decided to make her stand on her feet (kind of).

3 Delivery of Artbox goodies. The I <3 Artbox badge was free.

8 While taking photos of Peanut, I couldn't help but get this shot of Miss Dusty, who was very intrigued as to what was going on and why she was not receiving much attention.

9 Nails Inc Electric Avenue. My party nails for last night.

10 Delivery of Mark Watson's 'Bullet Points'. VERY excited to read this when I finish Winnie the Pooh.

11 Speaking of Winnie the Pooh...

12 An odd drive to college with Fern. The sky was striped and just completely unique. I took this when we stopped at traffic lights and Fern, who was driving, thought I was insane.

Besos ♥
Rachel

Magic

2012-01-10T23:04:00.000Z

They say that Disney's magic, right? Today's been a giving up kind of day.

Here is my new motto: "If ever there is tomorrow when we're not together.. there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we're apart.. I'll always be with you."

As I sat and sobbed all the way through Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin last night, I thought about the past and all of its challenges, and the future and how those challenges never seem to go away. It (the film) taught me two lessons: 1) never stop believing in the magic of Pooh, 2) there's nothing wrong with regressing a little when you need somewhere to escape to, and the Hundred Acre Wood isn't a bad place...

Besos ♥
Rachel

The Element of Surprise

2012-01-09T22:23:00.001Z

In the past five years or so, I can only name two books that were read from beginning to end with no skipping ahead: Eleven (Mark Watson), It's Not Me, It's You! (Jon Richardson). I find this fact quite important. I am still reading Jon's book. I'm on page 221, and even flicking the pages to find out how many there are remaining to read made me cringe and my eyes divert themselves away from the book itself. Yes, I realise it made the exercise entirely pointless. I also realise, after doing a spot of not-so-secret-anymore Googling, that I am certainly not the only person who cannot help but read the last few pages of a book before even looking at the first page (on occasion, even including the blurb).

There are arguments that reading the end of a book first can actually enhance the experience of reading it, an argument that I am slightly inclined to agree with. I like to know what is likely to happen, in any given situation, so I can adjust my behaviour appropriately throughout. In school, a lot of kids know that they are likely to get the dreaded detention if they misbehave, and so they are well-behaved. Prediction > response. I don't like situations popping up just when you think that life is perfectly levelled out.

Put bluntly, I don't like surprises. [And I certainly don't like them when they're some form of surprise test, an unexpected argument or, the worst, a traffic jam.]

Arguably, the fact that I don't like being, or feeling, surprised accounts for a lot of the decisions I make...

I know that topic is unlikely to appear in the exam, I'll revise it anyway just in case.
She was in a foul mood this morning, I'll stay here for a while longer until she's likely to have calmed down a bit.
If I cross the road when a car is approaching, I'm likely to get run over. I'll stay here on the pavement until the road is car-free.

I like to see the lack of the element of surprise in my life as more of a good thing than a bad one. My worst-case scenario would almost definitely be something along the lines of a surprise party. Firstly because I have been to several parties that I would describe as badly organised and executed - and this would irritate me no end considering my daily planner has a colour-coded system so that by simply glancing at a day I'll know whether the birthday marked is for a relative or friend - but secondly because there is no normal way to react to walking into a room full of people there to celebrate you in some form.

Equally, I'm not a fan of horror films. There are enough REAL horrors if I turn on the news, therefore I don't think it necessary to force false horrors onto myself so that I live the rest of my life reminding myself that I won't get killed if I set foot into a shower, but equally I need to be wary of any shower taken when I am in the house alone. The way I see it is this: why add to the looming pile of worries and concerns I already have?

Arguably, I don't need to be worrying about being surprised in my day-to-day life either. And I'm not. Not really, anyway. But equally, by at least acknowledging the fact that one day I might have to be surprised by something, I am counteracting the odd emotions that will inevitably follow as by simply thinking about the possibility, by brain is going over every potential situation and thinking of ways I could react. And this, my friends, is why I never seem to get any sleep...

The Quiet One

Growth

Besos ♥ Rachel

Sunday Catch-Up #3

Besos ♥ Rachel

Sunday Catch-Up #2

Besos ♥ Rachel

Mid-January Favourites & Sunday Catch-Up

Besos ♥ Rachel

Magic

Besos ♥ Rachel

The Element of Surprise

Besos ♥ Rachel

Besos ♥
Rachel

Besos ♥
Rachel

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Rachel

Besos ♥
Rachel

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Rachel

Besos ♥
Rachel