The Quiet One

He wants to communicate. He wants to be the sort of person who makes a simple statement that sums up all feelings with cutting precision. He wants to be that conversationalist who never has to repeat a trivial point because nobody understands it due to its correct grammar and sophisticated lexis. He wants to never have to explain himself twice, three times, four times, just to keep the conversation going.

And she longs to sit at her little wooden desk and let the poetry and lyrics swirling inside her head naturally transform from being jumbled, adolescent thoughts to neat, petite verses upon the pages of her leather-bound notebook. It was a birthday present from a friend, and someday she will use it to prove that she is who she has always longed to be - that person who is just understood, no questions asked; that person who can articulate every emotion without hesitance.

They both crave the ability to look their teachers in the eye when they converse, to just be the confident one for a change. They yearn to be rid of the chains of their age that tie them down, dampening any opinions formed and barring their freedom of speech. They lust after somebody to come along who can say the things that they can never bring themselves to say anywhere but inside their own heads, somebody who is literally everything they appear to be.

He aches to be a storyteller, taking you on a journey of emotion and drawing you to a fairly nonsensical yet oddly uplifting ending. She wishes she could lay all her thoughts out for the world to see - no embarrassment, no apologies. He probably does too, his eyes speak the words he can never say, they speak of oppression and persecution.

And, really, these are their thoughts, bare, sitting on this page with fragility and vulnerability, silently seeking the affirmation they need. And I am the words they can never quite bring to mind. I represent people all over this world, people who are afraid to say what they mean. I have been here for millennia. I am humble, simple and stative. I know I have been served well, but inside I am begging for a change - begging to see these people I have come to know so well be different, be daring. I long for a new, exciting vocabulary, one that speaks of issues and bucks the stereotypes that have held us all back for so long. I desire an optimistic outlook to be forced upon me with which I can apply the vocabulary I feel I have earnt over time. But, I know them all too well. I will be spoken from the mouths of him and her, from the mouths of everybody all over this diminutive planet. I know the world will continue changing for centuries to come, but alas, I know I will remain the same.

Christmas!

Feliz Navidad, Joyeux Noel, Fröhliche Weihnachten, Kala Christouyenna, Feliz Natal and Sretan Bozic! Just a quick post to say Merry Christmas and I hope that everybody who reads this has a lovely day full of 'festive cheer' etc.

Besos ♥
Rachel

Under a Streetlight

If you're reading this, you've probably already noticed. If not, I'm pleased to announce that The Details in the Fabric is now Under a Streetlight.

With a new year looming, I felt like the blog should in some way match the changes I'm going to make, so here we are. I'll probably re-design again around spring time to give the blog a lighter feel. Right now, I think the colour scheme matches the wintery feel to everything in my life right now. I'm currently making the headers to swap over for each season while I still have a free trial of Photoshop. Spring will be a nice green, summer perhaps pink-ish, autumn oranges and auburns and winter black-ish.

I chose song lyrics as the blog title, just as with The Details in the Fabric. You can listen to Joshua Radin - Streetlight here. When I first heard the song, I fell in love with it. I like the idea of there always being somewhere to turn when it's too dark to see (the streetlight) - I find it somewhat metaphorical of 'that one friend that you can always turn to for advice when everything is just too much'. The lyrics tend to hint towards this metaphor too, and the song holds a lot of positive resonance for me.

Therefore, bearing in mind this metaphor, I'd like to 'dedicate' this change of title and appearance to Fern and Eliza - two friends who I wouldn't be able to function properly without. Throughout everything they've stuck by me and are always around to offer me advice and help me out with anything I ask them to. I'd like to say they've both had their own problems...but Fern seems to be one of those lucky people who gets through life without having much go wrong. So, Eliza's had her fair share of problems too...but has always been there for me and everybody else no matter what. Fern is generally found with the common sense advice of ''forgetting about it'', which doesn't always work first time but always works in the long run.

So, there we have it. New title, new graphics, new appearance. Hopefully a new blogger (don't worry, I'm not going anywhere...) next year when I start to finally get over some 'stuff' and become a lot more positive...

Besos ♥
Rachel

I'll sing it one last time for you...

UPDATE: Links to some of the Thursday performances have been added to the bottom

Last week brought the first PROPER choir performance we've done yet. Sure, we've done two performances at college open evenings, but they weren't proper performances - the audience weren't there just to see us. On Wednesday we performed our Christmas Concert at St Giles' Church in Pontefract. Rob (Choirmaster) was very obviously freaking out before the concert started ("Has anybody got mints? I need something to distract me..." showed us all that much).

It wasn't the best turn out ever, but it was rubbish weather and we had enough people turn up to make it worthwhile. We also performed for the Senior Citizens' Christmas Party on Thursday afternoon and did the same set as on Wednesday. The piano was quite out of tune, so we didn't give the best performances ever, but they all seemed to enjoy it.

Thursday was a fairly horrible day, so I was glad to have the performance in the afternoon to distract me. Rob and the choir managed to cheer me up quite considerably, and I've since realised how much being a part of the choir means to me. I also got to see Chloe (my 'form friend') perform her solo for the first time on Wednesday then again on Thursday...she's SO talented but didn't believe she did a good job with the first performance.

I actually missed having a rehearsal on Friday lunchtime (we finished college at lunchtime), it's always one of the highlights of the week. We did have an Amnesty meeting this week though, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Adam (President of group) bought me a 'present' (it was a Cadbury's selection box) for being the person who worked the most/best on the stall throughout the Greetings Card Campaign. We did a group brainstorm of ideas to celebrate the good things we've done since September and eventually took a group photo, sung Happy Birthday to Eliza (she wasn't too thrilled with that though...) then did a group 'woo' (Oliver's idea). We did get some actual Amnesty-related stuff done too, but it was mainly our own little Christmas party (we also had Christmas food - thanks Adam! - and Christmas songs playing).

I think it's fair to say that choir and Amnesty are pretty much the only reasons I've stayed at college this long. I somehow managed to get through my week of torturous things in my lessons, didn't think it was possible but I did. I was probably very distracted through Thursday and Friday, but still, I got through it. I'll be back at some point between now and Saturday to wish you all a Merry Christmas, but for now good luck with all of the shopping etc ;)

Besos ♥
Rachel

Links:
Sussex Carol
Silent Night
There are links to two other songs on my page or down the right-hand suggestions box thingy :) Enjoy! (And please remember we're not even a year old and didn't have much rehearsal time due to the snow :P)

PS: I've added a 'Video Bar' at the bottom of the posts so you can link to all the choir videos I've put up easily :)
PPS: I've also added one for my non-choir videos :)
If you click on the video whilst watching it, it'll take you to the YouTube page for it, you can then click my username to find more videos.

Understanding

Sometimes, there are people who you understand - and who understand you - on a level that can't be explained. Eliza is one of those people, and I am so thankful for that.

Her answer to a message about what I can buy her for her birthday on Wednesday:
"And if you still don't find anything, donate some money to charity and write in a card for me who you sent it to."

She is the only person that would understand why I'm writing this because of what she sent to me. She also keeps writing about me on her blog so I figured I better start playing catch up before I get too behind ;)

Besos ♥
Rachel

Cracked

I know I've already posted once today, so I'm writing this late at night so it'll get published tomorrow, even if it's early morning.

I'm hurting about something, and I don't know what more I can do to try and stop that hurt. Some of it comes down to the amount of effort I put into things and the lack of effort in return, some of it comes down to five years that feel wasted, some of it comes down to a sense of ignorance. I said I wasn't going to talk about this, but I am, because I'm tired of feeling like the bad guy and I need to justify myself somehow...somewhere.

As far as I see it, when a friendship is starting to break up, there are two options:
1) Accept within yourself what is happening and go with it, remaining friendly with the other(s) involved;
2) Meaning to make that effort to keep the friendship going...but never following through with the intention.

I'm aware that I'm obviously writing from a biased point of view, because I'm not going to just slag myself off on here because a) there's no real point in that and b) I know that I am, at least partially, correct to have taken things this way.

So, you talk to the person involved and be honest, because they've always maintained they want people to be honest with them. You come to the conclusion that they need to think about things and get back to you about how they feel, fair enough. Makes sense, right? But then the only problem is that you're torn between 5 years of friendship, or following your gut instinct. I won't say what that instinct is, because it'll make me seem like a bad person, but I will say that there does come a point when something cannot be repaired. And I'm starting to question whether this is one of those things...

To be honest, I'm tried of being the one picking up the pieces...but never being supported, I'm tired of being the friend who sits up for hours talking through problems and offering solutions...but who gets nothing but a very ''on the fence'' comment in return and a swift change of topic. I'm sick of being the one putting in maximum effort and seeing nothing being repaid, and I'm sick of being the one who is continually left out of the loop...but still expected to know all about the loop. I haven't got the time, energy or emotion to deal with it all anymore. I've never been this selfish, but I think maybe I need to be this time.

I don't have my teachers to sort out problems for me anymore, and I don't even want them to. We've left school and whether we like it or not, we have to do this by ourselves. I dislike it as much as the next person, but I'm willing to do it to make sure that things are OK. I've put in every effort I have, it's someone else's turn to figure out the rest...because I can't do it for them anymore.

I've decided that 2011 is going to be a good year. It has to be, because I've had that much crap this year that not much else could top it. I've also decided that I'm not going into 2011 without having dealt with the problems of this year and put them behind me. It's going to be a challenge for this one, because I'm still not sure that there's any genuine emotion in the situation except mine...but with others I've managed to do it because their reactions to things that happened showed me then, and still do now, that they genuinely never meant any harm. And believe me, I'm big enough to admit when I'm wrong, because I now realise I was probably very wrong in how I dealt with something earlier this year and I want to fix that. I'm in no way saying that I'm perfect, but I think I've put enough effort into this situation to be allowed a few rants like this one...

Besos ♥
Rachel

You Call That News?

I wasn't going to do a post today, mainly because the only thing I could write about would more than likely be read by the person it'd be about, and I can't be bothered with that drama. Needless to say, things have happened and pretending they haven't is just stupid.

I spoke to my counsellor about what happened and she agreed that the actions I took were a good way of dealing with it. It's relieving to know someone's ''on my side'', I'm not used to that feeling.

Anyway, most of my week has been spent working on my media project. We have to make a Project A - a print-based piece - and a Project B - a moving image piece (unless we choose a magazine, when it's all print-based). I chose to do an advertising campaign for a TV show I invented (You Call That News?) I've spent every evening this week minus Wednesday when I was at consultation evening in college working on my print-based pieces.

There was some mini-drama when my teacher emailed me basically telling me to start again, and because of how much work had gone into the piece I did genuinely cry (I know, I need some real problems, right?) I eventually followed her advice and I now have two new posters (one a magazine/newspaper advert, one a billboard advert...it's HUGE). I think they look quite good, and they also look quite convincing as adverts so I'm happy with what I've done, and I definitely feel more confident with them than the one I did originally.

I'm glad I've finished what I can do without seeing my teacher tonight, it means all I have to do over the weekend is:
- Re-draft my Media research report;
- Do my Spanish presentation again because college computers have stopped opening the original;
- Prepare ANOTHER Spanish presentation on Rafael Nadal, ready to be interviewed by the entire class on Tuesday. Hate, hate, hate;
- Revise Spanish listenings and readings for a make up test on Monday;
- Fill in the tense sheets for...wait for it...Spanish;
- Revise for my English Language mock on Monday;
- Finish preparing for the 15 minute narrative theory lesson I have to give in Media on Tuesday;
- Revise for my English Language mock on Wednesday;
- Revise for my English Language mock on Thursday;
- Fill in a sheet on a video watched in class for Psychology;
- Find out about choir rehearsals next week;
- Fill out another stupid CoPE sheet and email it to the teacher.

Yuck. I could genuinely scream at the amount of Spanish I have to do. The teacher honestly made up the Rafael Nadal task as the lesson progressed this morning, totally filled me with confidence. At least we finish at lunchtime on Friday, so I miss two lessons and only have to come in for Spanish, I'll probably get my mum to pick me up, though part of me wants to stay until lunchtime a) because buses will still be running as they should so I won't have to cram onto a single decker and b) college is much more fun when you have no cares. Plus I can have a day at college where I can take a small bag and only one folder. Going in is worth it purely for that reason to be honest. I could always use the time to start planning my Beginners' Spanish lessons...

Yes, after Christmas I'll be teaching beginners' Spanish in college for 6 weeks for my next CoPE project. Judith (Head of MFL) was really enthusiastic about me doing it when I suggested it to her and said it was a really good idea, so I'm finally a bit excited about Spanish again.

AND I might be going to Bella Italia on Friday, which equals amazing salad dressing. It's the small things in life...

I also have an Amnesty International placard at the top right of the blog now, if you click it it'll take you to the Protect the Human site. Please check out the really important work that Amnesty do. It really does make a difference, no matter how small. I've spent the past two days campaigning in college for their annual Greetings Card Campaign and the stories I had to learn about really touched me, particularlythe story of Ferhat Gerçek. My card will be going to him, as well as any others who haven't had any cards yet. We will be sending cards to everybody in the campaign, it's something that's important to us.

Hope you all have great weekends :)

Besos ♥
Rachel

Sociedad

[Sociedad = society in Spanish]

'Sociedad' is a word that I have read and written repeatedly for easily over an hour now. I thought I'd better do something productive before college finally re-opens tomorrow (I have Spanish first, go figure...) I decided to do some more work on my oral exam preparation and write the remainder of my answers for the 'Music and Fashion' section. Never. Again.

The music questions were fine, they were varied enough to be able to write different, decent answers to each. The fashion ones? Ay! They were all pretty much the same, but I still had to write a paragraph on each. I'd have been fine if I'd ignored the answer criteria and just written, but because I had to include different tenses, I'd have already answered #4 in one of the previous questions so I had to repeat myself or make something up. I still have the technology and relationships sections to write about. Technology isn't too bad, it's a bit repetitive but at least the general topic area doesn't make me want to hit something/shout at someone. It's a start, right?

I found a Facebook group for Media students at my college. I was firstly amused at the fact it only had 27 members (and only 2 'admins' even though there are 4 teachers...3 of whom definitely having Facebook accounts), and then annoyed when I saw a post by Paul, my theory teacher, giving info on what we should/could do while we've been off. Why he couldn't have sent it via college email...which is how communication generally always is...I don't know. Bless him for trying though, he even commented on how pointless it probably was due to the majority (if not all) of the members being students that have now left. Gotta admire him for trying. His display pic is also majorly amusing.

I did get to meet up with Becky today. She ended up sledging down a hill near my house on a ripped charity bag. I was useless at it so I gave up after a while. Anyway, getting back on the topic of 'sociedad', two things really annoyed me today: the first being the fact that nobody who lives on my street cleared any snow so we could get cars out...except my family...the second being the thoroughly selfish attitude of people I know. I can't be bothered explaining the first annoyance any further, I've never pretended to like the people I live near so it's no surprise that they're annoying me once again.

The second annoyance really, really wound me up. It most probably shouldn't, but it did. It's been forming for a few days now, but today it finally got to me... I can't stand hearing or reading all of these pathetically selfish comments about schools and colleges opening tomorrow. Everytime I read a status on Facebook or a tweet on Twitter where somebody is actually criticising them for opening tomorrow if possible, I want to scream. Somebody in year ten at my old school actually uploaded a picture of the school and a member of staff with a spade clearing snow to Facebook earlier. The caption? "DOES THIS MEAN THERE'S SCHOOL TOMORROW?!" I'm sorry, but it's hardly breaking news, is it? Someone actually commented on the picture with: "who is that with the fricking shovel? they are desperate arnt they!? x" Firstly, it's just a shovel, not a ''fricking shovel'', secondly, I'd like the people being so lazy to have to be the ones clearing the snow. I walked past the school early this afternoon and there was only the Acting Head there. That's it. Why the hell can't people be thankful and grateful that people are working so hard to do something good for them? I'm pretty sure most teachers would like another day off, but they have to go and work...and so do we. That's just how it is.

I'm sorry if you're reading this and you are one of those people, it just really winds me up how the vast majority of people my age see their teachers as their enemies. It's a mentality I have never understood and, quite frankly, I hope that I never do. I like being the sort of person who appreciates the lengths people go to and have gone to for me. There's nothing wrong with that, but there is with being selfish...

And now my rant for the day is over, I'm going to tidy up all this Spanish stuff and get a shower. Buenas noches.

Besos ♥
Rachel

"You've got rise, don't just stand there open your eyes, shame, shame, shame on you." - Rise - Ben's Brother

PS: Looks like I'll be able to go to Mark Watson on Saturday after all. And I haven't even picked up my Psychology textbook (as mentioned in yesterday's post), someone can set me some work if they want me to catch up - I'm not guessing which topics we'll be covering and hoping I'm right.

Snowed In

Today is day 2 of being snowed in. Tomorrow will be day 3 of being off college. Thankfully, I might get to see Becky (cousin) so I can finally enjoy the snow a little rather than just clearing it off the path or being stuck in the house. I don't even have anything to blog about, but I'm going insane just sitting around. None of my teachers have even emailed me work to do, and since Monday was the only day at college this week, I don't even have any outstanding homework.

I've spent the past two days listening to Mat Kearney. That's pretty much it. Yesterday morning, I ended up trekking to the shop for supplies at 8:15am, that was interesting. I only fell off the pavement twice... Anyway, back to Mat Kearney. If you're as bored as I am, I suggest you YouTube him now. He's one of those artists whose lyrics are pretty dull...but there are a few stand-out lines that really resonate with me.

I'm going to have to find something interesting to do tomorrow. I don't care what it is, anything's better than this... I think I'm going to write out some more Spanish oral questions and skim through my Psychology textbook to see what we'll be catching up on. Apparently we're already behind as a class anyway, so the next few weeks are going to be fun...not. At least I've had a few days to gather my thoughts and chill out a bit. The constant working was starting to get on top of me again.

I am worrying slightly that the snow will stop me being able to see Mark Watson in Halifax on Saturday. And, as sad as it sounds, I will cry if I can't. I even looked up hotel rooms overnight. It'd be a lot easier to get one if there weren't three of us going. Damn odd numbers. Always disliked them.

The highlight of the day was picking out the camera I'm getting for Christmas online. That's about it. That, and watching my bunny eating snow. It's actually cuter than when she yawns, and that's saying a lot. Sidenote: If you have a rabbit, feed them a bit of snow, it's the best fun ever ;)

Anyway, if anybody wants some snow and doesn't have any, head to Wakefield, we've got more than enough.

Besos ♥
Rachel

PS: Happy 1st December everybody :)

When all is lost, all is left to gain

Well, we made it, we're finally at the big 1-0-0...

I'm not entirely sure I believe this is my 100th post. It doesn't feel like I've kept this up for 100 different posts, 100 different life lessons, 100 different stories. I want to take you all back a little...

Remember that? You'd be forgiven if you don't, it feels like years ago. I remember staying up for HOURS making that banner and the matching pictures to go on the sidebar. It took a long time, but it felt like an accomplishment. I realise now that I never said why I started this blog. Well, I did it because I attempted blogging with a friend (Beth) and then we kind of weren't friends anymore and the blog got forgotten about. We were The Danish Fisherwomen, if you fancy checking it out. Anyway, I guess I liked blogging so I decided to start my own up. It ended up starting off a ''blogging craze'' amongst my friends, with three of them starting up their own (one of them gave up, two of them occasionally post now).

When I started this blog, I was going through some pretty big friendship changes and it was a good outlet of emotion. I could shout out what I was feeling and nobody really read it except a few close friends (Fern, Aiden and Eliza). That dynamic has changed slightly (as evidenced by the reader tracking...), but the reasoning is still there. I think bloggers create their blogs for a reason, and I know it's to express something. Blogs fit into different categories, some are very specific and some are just nonsense. Mine probably fits into the 'nonsense' category.

Since I started my blog up, lots of things have changed in my life, and it's probably worth a recap. The biggest change of all is that I left school on Wednesday 19th May. Frankly, I'm still only just 'getting over' it, and I'm not ashamed to admit that I still struggle with the vast difference between school and college. I went to prom on Wednesday 30th June and had an amazing night with the best friends I could have asked for from 5 years of high school. I went on my World Challenge expedition to Croatia on Friday 9th July and had the time of my life for 8 days, returning on Saturday 17th July. It changed me for the better, and I know I'm never going to forget it. I know I'll make the effort to remember every detail. I started college on Thursday 2nd September. It was great for a while, and then I struggled like mad and spent pretty much every day trying not to cry my way through lessons and being helped by my new (and slightly mental due to the fact that he agreed to be locked in a cage in the common room) tutor, Tim. I made new friends and pretty much lost old ones, but the fact that those of us who stuck together are closer than we ever were before says something to me. It shows me that there's a reason why we're friends. I met Chloe, my form/English/choir buddy, and ended up organising fundraising activities for Children in Need with her. I met Poppy, my choir buddy, comedy twin and Minchin-singer. I met Talor and Kerry, who make Psychology endlessly fun. I met my English Language class, and I love how we all get along brilliantly. I met Jonathan, Adam and the rest of the Amnesty International group, and I met Eleanor who accepted us all for who we are.

I've learnt that the journey really is the important part, and that the outcome is how it is. I've learnt that I'm much for resiliant than I ever believed I could be. I've even learnt how to accept that I can't ''do it all'' (I have counselling by the college counsellor). Most importantly, I think I've learnt how to go with what works best for YOU and just accept that not everybody else will agree with it.

I've also learnt that Rob, our Choirmaster, likes to announce 'emergency rehearsals' - I love it though, and I think I've really started to get used to not just moaning at everything that I don't like. I've also learnt to admit that yes, I do like being stupidly busy.

That's about all from me this evening. Except I would just like to say Happy Birthday to my mum for tomorrow :)

Besos ♥
Rachel

"Doesn't matter what comes crashing down, I'm still gonna stand my solid ground." - Won't Back Down, Mat Kearney

99

This is my 99th post, the next will be my 100th (you could probably work that out for yourselves really). So, it's taken me less than a year to reach the 100 mark. I was going to go back to my first post and talk about it for my 100th post, but I think I'd like to do something different...and less clichéd.

So, what would YOU like to see written about in my 100th post? Give me all the suggestions you can think of and I'll choose my favourite(s) and write about them. Simple?

I'll then be back for the 101st post to discuss my very first post. And then I'll do one in Spanish, I promise :)

Besos ♥
Rachel

"So let the wind blow us to wherever it says we are supposed to go. When you want something but can't name it, it's under a streetlight." - Streetlight - Joshua Radin

PS: Josh Groban was on the Alan Titchmarsh show this evening. I love that man so much ♥

Taking a Roadtrip

*Warning: here comes another 'Croatia' post*

Inspiration can come from the largest or smallest of things. Most recently, it's come from a realisation that I took more away from the Croatia expedition than I first thought.

Before I explain the point of this post, I just want to give you a bit of background information...I've joined the college's Amnesty International group. Background info over.

Now, here's how they link...

When I was in Croatia, we had to go on a journey from Starigrad to Kaštel Žegarski. The journey involved spending about an hour in minibuses going all through the countryside - right from next to the coast at Starigrad to a river in the middle of the wilderness. We passed a lot of what I called 'shells of houses' - houses that had clearly once been homes, yet somehow were no longer even lived in. Minus a few collapsed brick fences and dodgy roofing, these houses looked like they could be lived in now. I wish I'd had the chance to get up close to one of them, just to peer through the window. I also wish I'd got better pictures than the following, but I think they illustrate the images I remember well..
.

These houses struck me as odd. Firstly because they were there, abandoned in their hundreds, and they were everywhere. They were en route to Kaštel Žegarski, Trogir, Novigrad, Starigrad... Why? Because we visited Zadar County - one of the 'most shelled cities' affected by the Croatian War of Independence. You see that small building in the second picture? It's a church. It's more than likely that the graves that can be seen around it once zoomed in are mainly war victims.

The emptiness of the countryside struck me whilst I was there. The countryside is lonely here in the UK, but there was something about it out there that caught my attention. I cannot even understand what it must feel like to have to abandon your home and flee everything you know, I hope I never have to. I hope I'll never have to experience the fear and intensity that these people must have experienced, the consuming sense of helplessness and injustice. You see, it's easy to forget sometimes that these are real people. But they are. These people have existed and do exist now.

I know Croatia isn't exactly a war-torn country now, so I'd imagine many people won't see how it can have made me think so much. But it doesn't take a trip to Iraq or Afghanistan to realise that there are real issues going on and that there are real people being unfairly affected every single day. Which is where Amnesty International comes in. I'm not going to say I joined the group at college entirely because of Croatia, because I didn't...but it was certainly an important factor for me. The thing is, there are people all over the world who are helpless, and somebody needs to help them. I know our small group in college isn't going to make a massive difference to the world, but we're trying and we're supporting, and sometimes that's all we can do to make a difference.

Besos ♥
Rachel

"One step forward, two steps back. Through the void of silence you are not alone." - War at Home, Josh Groban, Illuminations

Mockery

Some say that those who bully you are jealous of you, don't they? I wish I could believe that idea, but there's something that just stops me fully buying the idea of it.

I'm not sure whether what I'm about to talk about counts as bullying, but it's nasty behaviour and completely unjustified...so I'm going to class it in that way for now.

Here's the deal: today was the first day of Children in Need fundraising at college. I've got to be honest, I wasn't expecting it to be a roaring success...mostly because of the irritating people sprawled across the stage in front of our stall who refused to move, but also because I've seen the people who go to my college...they're about as apathetic as a bunch of teenagers can get really. Anyway, I wasn't expecting it to go well...and it went slightly better than I'd anticipated, so it could've been worse.

There's a bunch of people who I know who, for a long time now, have liked to think they're 'it'. Yes, these 'queen bee' types even exist at college. When I took part in the Amnesty International campaign, one of them took to quite literally laughing in my face about it whenever I passed her. Pathetic? Yes. Did it bother me? No, I'm used to it by now to be honest. This girl, along with several of her friends, then mocked our campaign on Facebook one evening. Pathetic again? Definitely...

The same few people have once again taken to mocking me/what the Children in Need group are doing, not over Facebook...this time in the middle of the common room while we were selling cakes. Why am I mentioning all of this? Because I still find it hard to believe that so many people my age are as immature and pathetic as they are. Apparently we're the 'freaks' for doing the fundraising. But what about the people who ridicule fundraising and refuse to get involved and HELP SOMEBODY WHO ISN'T SPOILT LIKE THEY ARE? Surely they're the real freaks, and quite frankly, I'm laughing at them. How narrowminded can one person be to actually react to someone trying to make a difference in such a lame way?

But hey, I won't be losing any sleep over it. And if it continues, they could face a two week suspension from college. Yeah, I'm not taking crap from anyone anymore.

Besos ♥
Rachel

I think too much

The title pretty much sums up my entire post, but I should probably at least attempt to explain it a little, seen as it's pretty blunt.

It's true though, I do, and I really should think about figuring out how to stop it (ha!). My thoughts on this stem from a conversation I had with my tutor on Friday morning, it went a bit like this:
Tutor: "OK then, what is it you want to tell me?"
Me: "Well, I feel like I should probably explain why I generally tend to work too much."
Tutor: "OK..."
Me: "I think it's because..."
And I'm not going to explain the rest, mostly because I can't remember how the rest of the conversation went up until it started going into how I was bullied at high school for a while and I realised it had taken a slightly unwanted direction. Though, just for the record/to clarify, the bullying thing hasn't really affected me long term.

The conversation basically went into my theory as to why I spend so much time working when I probably don't need to. Teachers have always described it as me being ''conscientious'', which has always been accurate, but I think there's something else to it. If I look back on the periods of time I've spent working the most, it's always been when I've been really uncomfortable with friendship problems or the social aspect of whatever I'm going through at the time. To me, that only suggests one thing.

My tutor did actually agree with me that my reasoning probably is why I work too much, so I'm not just being mental and making stuff up. I mean, it's helpful to be able to put a label on it and be able to explain it, rather than just being the idiot who spends too much time working and gets stressed. Ironically, it's mostly the people who mock me for being the 'nerd' that cause me to be the nerd, but that's another story entirely.

In other news, I had a realisation that creeped me out a bit a day or two ago. I realised that I no longer need my high school tutor, and I never thought I'd say that. That's not to say that I'll ever stop appreciating everything she's done for me and that I'm suddenly forgetting how much she's taught me about myself, but I don't...or at least not at the moment. For me, that's almost considered an achievement.

I'm also performing with the college choir again on Wednesday evening for Open Evening. Hopefully I won't be nervous because I wasn't last time, so I can't see why I would be this time.

I think one day I'm going to do a blog post entirely in Spanish. I told you I think too much...

Besos ♥
Rachel

"When your hope has been denied you, I will walk beside you, carry on." - Ben's Brother

Seeing the woods despite the trees

Tonight's blog may be a little heavy in a few places and is guaranteed to be confusing in many, so I apologise in advance if it doesn't make much sense. I have a few things that I want to get off my chest, and none of them really link in fully with the others. But here goes anyway...

I realised some things tonight while contemplating life (as you do...) and looking through my school yearbook.
1) I don't miss school
2) College is my new normal
3) It's alright that I don't miss school
4) It's alright that college is my new normal

I don't miss school, I genuinely, honestly don't. I thought I always would, and I always believed that it would always be my favourite memory ever, my favourite period of time ever etc etc. Truth is, it probably always will be, and I have to accept that. But if I'm being 100% honest, I don't miss it. I mean, I still do miss school a little. When I'm struggling to deal with my workload or if I get a bit upset during the college day, I miss my teachers and I miss knowing the system inside-out. Other than that, it's not that bad. And it's alright that I don't miss school, I'm not betraying myself by admitting that.

I always seemed to have this belief that by missing school, I'd somehow be betraying myself/school/my teachers. Stupid, right? Well it's how I thought, and I realise now that it was a pretty silly outlook, but it was the one I had nonetheless...and it's one that's ensured that my first half term at college has been, well, less than smooth. Leaving school is a huge thing, and no matter which way I look at it, I don't think I could have acted any differently when handling it...but I'm no longer at school, I'm at college, and it's alright that I enjoy myself and actually begin to forget some of the little details of school that are no longer important...

I don't need to remember which room every teacher was in when I left, I don't need to remember my timetable and I don't even need to remember my teachers' names...but I do want to remember them. It's about choosing what to carry forward with me and what I can forget. I'm choosing to remember what I learnt, the memories I made and the people who inspired me, and that's great, that's fantastic, but I'm also choosing to leave behind the things that I don't want to remember and cloud over my life...and that's equally as great and fantastic.

I get up on a Monday, go to college, come home...and the system repeats itself until the end of the day on Friday. That's how it works, and that's how my life is. It's my routine, it's my normal, and slowly...it's starting to feel normal too. That's pretty much all I have to say on the subject to be honest, but it's a pretty important realisation for me. Basically, it's alright that college is my new normal and school isn't. That's it.

College is even kinda fun. Yep, I said it. Fun. I've made friends with a girl in my form, Chloe, who is also in my English class and choir, and she's really nice and we have a lot in common. When I started college, I didn't know a single person in my form, and that was the most worrying thing about college for me. Now? I talk to Chloe a lot...she even came and sat with me in a free we share when she didn't know where else to go. Maybe she was using me a little, but I really don't care. It shows something, and I like that.

And then there's my English class. Unlike at GCSE, when I really didn't like the class, I love the class. There isn't a single person in there who I don't like. Everybody seems to just get along, and I know that it's down to Jonathan (one of our two teachers) making us do so much group work. I recognised that a long while back and I'm actually incredibly thankful for it, because it means that I walk into my English room and feel happy. You can't put a price on that kind of thing. My Psychology class is equally as fun. I don't like everybody in there, but my teacher is pretty awesome and, as a whole, the class is good.

These things, they're new and they're scary, but they're also exciting and fun if we're willing to let them be. And you know what, I reckon that's the trick to everything: recognise the fear, and conquer it. (I know those points aren't exactly linked, but I think it's true regardless).

Besos ♥
Rachel

Hell in several contexts...

"It'S HELL in the Niger Delta" - I should probably have that tattooed on my forehead. I've just completed two days campaigning for Amnesty International's Shell Hell Campaign within my college. We had petitions and a pretty cool handprinting stall yesterday too. I'm not sure of the total number of signatures, but we had over 350 last time I counted at around 12pm today so I'm sure we'll have got quite a few more since then.

I got to help out with some current friends and some pretty awesome people that I'm slowly getting to know as well, so being a part of things was quite fun. I got to work on my confidence by going round every table in the learning café and asking people if they were interested in signing the petition, so that was good. I did realise something though: students fit into two categories - 1) actually caring about the world; 2) caring about nothing but themselves (though of course if they were impoverished and living in inhumane conditions, I reckon they'd have something to say about it...). Not only that, but they find this lack of basic human rights amusing. Yes, amusing. Ay ay ay...

College is still quite hellish, but it's slowly getting better. My tutor is pretty mental and likes telling me things such as ''your aim is to do the worst piece of work you've ever done" and "I want you to go to Student Exec and get them to start up a Dodgy Knees Club". He does give good advice though, so the humour is balanced out with sane comments too. I had an odd conversation with him and the Acting Principal yesterday morning about ''the ability to see the wood for the trees". It concluded with the AP spotting me in the common room about two hours later and asking me if I could see the wood for the trees yet. I probably responded with ''er, yeah, I think so...'' then shuffled off back behind the Amnesty stall.

My Psychology teacher has helped me quite a lot too. He's also a bit mad (though he's a Psych teacher, I can let him off for it a bit easier) but again, he's very good at giving advice. He decided to spend half an hour after college ended on Wednesday talking to me about how I was, what I wanted to do at uni and what it's like being a teacher. That, combined with a particularly moving comment my school Head of Year said at the Awards Evening last night, helped me to realise what I want and that I shouldn't let anything get in my way. He (Psych teacher) also ended an email to me with a smiley face earlier, how can you not like someone who does that?

It was my GCSE Awards Evening last night. I won three special awards - High Achiever, Outstanding Achievement (from Governors) and Outstanding Contribution To the Life of the School. I had to go up on stage so many times that the teacher responsible for ushering us all onstage told me "You don't need me, you've done this before". It was nice to see everyone again for one last time and I feel like I can finally move on from school now I'm no longer tied to it in the same way that I still have been since starting college. I'm not going to spend ages talking about it, because the things that I took from the evening are personal and there is a line between what I do want to write about and what I want to keep personal. It did spur me on to email my Psychology teacher thanking him for the talk we had after college though.

Have a lovely weekend, and ensure that you make room for some ''you time'' (as my tutor AND Psychology teacher both told me today...)

Besos ♥
Rachel

"It's hard to take courage. In a world full of people you can lose sight of it all." - Cyndi Lauper - True Colors

If I lay here...

...if I just lay here. Would you lie with me and just forget the world? I don't quite know, how to say, how I feel.

I always liked this song. Now, I love this song. It just symbolises two things that I know I will always remember.

1) Slow dancing to it at prom with Eliza. Whenever I hear it, I can be right back in that moment, dancing, singing and laughing with her and our other friends and not giving a damn about anything else in the world.

2) Singing it very loudly in the back of a minibus with 5 other girls in Croatia. It was during our final journey, our final half hour on expedition. We'd all been sleeping for most of the journey from Starigrad to Split Airport, but we all woke up around the same time when we were nearing Trogir (the closest, most lively town to Split) and the driver (a lovely woman who only looked about 21) turned the radio on. Throughout the week, whenever we'd been in the minibuses, we'd had an English-Croatian channel on. The signal/reception was horrific all week, we never managed to get through a full song without it breaking up and us missing parts. We pulled up to some traffic lights in Trogir and sat in traffic for a few minutes, it was quite bad because of a lorry up ahead, I recall. Chasing Cars came on the radio and all 6 of us instantly joined in singing along. Our driver turned the radio up because she could tell we all liked the song. And, without any pauses or moments of stopping, we all sung along for the entire song. I can never tell the story and do the moment the justice it deserves. There was just something that happened while we were all merrily singing along that sticks with me. We were absolutely exhausted and we just wanted to get on the plane and go home, but we all came alive for the first time that day. Some of our best moments were spent during bus journeys and I'm so thankful to have a memory that will always remind me of that.

Why have I just said all of that? You may well ask, I know I would be... I had a pretty bad morning this morning. It began with another awful Spanish lesson, was followed up by an hour spent uploading video footage for my CoPE video without the rest of the group I'm working with, and ended with me sitting in the common room with Fern and Keyana trying not to burst into tears. There are TVs in the common room that play random music (previously selected on the jukebox I think). Chasing Cars came on and, for a brief moment, I was dancing at prom then back sitting in a minibus in Trogir traffic.

I'm so glad that so many of my memories of Croatia (and school) link to very random every day occurances. Sometimes, in the midst of everything that's going on, something will just remind me of Croatia and I'm instantly reminded of how much I went through there and how much I've learnt. I'm not saying that this always happens right when I need it, but when it does, it's the biggest help I could receive. It's the small things, such as this morning. I had to carry three reasonably heavy bags across my village to the bus stop. My natural reaction to anything like this was always "I hate my life!", but this morning...I just found myself going "You carried three times this in Croatia up a mountain and back down again, what's the point in complaining?"

I used to always expect too much from life, from my friends and family etc. Over the summer, I've learnt to expect nothing, and appreciate the little details that everybody else misses. If you start complaining about the world, you miss the fun in it.

Besos ♥
Rachel

"I can smell burning...am I on fire?!" - Catherine Drayton during our final night as happy campers

I Am Conjugating

OK...so at this moment in time, technically I'm studying vocabulary, but either way you still don't really know what I'm talking about. So, in short, I'm talking about the S word...

Spanish

I used to love studying Spanish. It was the one subject that got me through the day at school. Now I'm at college? It's the one subject that ruins my day. I'm assuming you can see my dilemma...

I mean...everybody knows that Ser is used for professions, nationalities (note: I just spelt that 'nacional'... I hate being a languages student sometimes) etc and Estar is used for conditions, illnesses, emotions etc, right? It's incredibly simple to conjugate irregular verbs and memorise all verb forms, right? It's positively easy to have full spontaneous conversations about Live 8, right? Wrong.

Did I think AS Level Spanish would be easy? No. Did I think I'd enjoy it? Yes. Am I enjoying it? No. It's a ridiculous circle that seems to go on forever. Even being a pessimist hasn't prepared me well for the hideous fact that Spanish is currently the most horrible thing I know of. You know what's more frustrating? I always LOVED it. Always. For the past three years of studying it, I have never lost my enthusiasm for it. And now, when it's more important than ever? Ugh...

I don't think there's a real technique to studying languages...particularly Spanish...you just have to study in the way that works best for you. But what do you do when the way that works best for you is the complete opposite of the way the teacher likes you to study? Do you go ahead and use your own methods or do you force yourself into doing what your teacher wants, even if you know it's having no positive effect on your learning?

As odd as it sounds, I'd never met a Spanish person until I met our teacher, Ester, so it's pretty odd just getting used to talking to somebody who is actually Spanish. There are obvious advantages to my teacher being from Spain, the main one being that she's fluent...so there's no consulting of gigantic dictionaries to find words when students need them. Her accent is much purer than that of an English person teaching Spanish, so it's easier to pronounce words correctly. She obviously has a good knowledge of her country. I could go on listing advantages, but they'd probably become a bit silly and make no sense. The glaring disadvantage is that she never chose to study Spanish, so there's a general lack of enthusiasm during lessons that was constantly present at GCSE. It's hard to be enthusiastic and passionate about something so difficult when the teacher has never been in your position. Yes, obviously she learnt English...but it's different.

On the plus side, I got through today's lesson without wanting to cry and/or quit college so clearly things are slowly improving. I'm hoping that it'll slowly get back round to being fun and that I'll find my enthusiasm again. I'm highly doubting it at the moment, but I'm hoping for it nonetheless.

(At least I got in a few good adverbs during this post...my English Language teacher would be impressed ;P)

Besos ♥
Rachel

"When we stand in the face of the world falling down, in your hands you hold the pen. What's your answer for the end?"

My School Prom

I just watched 'My School Prom' on iPlayer and couldn't help but get a bit emotional at it. It seemed to bring out a whole array of emotions that I'd hidden away when I left school. Looking back, the leaving period was the most emotional time of my life. However sad that may sound, it's true. It was, and I'm not going to downplay that fact.

Seeing the people in the show getting oh-so-excited about prom and then watching their own journeys reminded me all too much of my own. There was always that underlying fear of the future, but it was always masked by the joy of the present, the joy of prom, the joy of leavers' day etc. The build up to leavers' day and prom was immense. Everybody talked about it, everybody lived off the fact that they were coming for about a month, really. It never really occured to me at the time that it's never going to happen again. It has now. For the first time, I've just realised that school really is over. Forever. That's it now.

So, yeah, watch it if you haven't had your school prom yet, because I imagine it'll be very exciting/interesting/it'll make you want your prom to be tomorrow. Don't watch it if you already have, because it'll either make you depressed or make you wish you still had that entire period of time in your life to look forward to.

Besos ♥
Rachel

"When the curtain falls for one last time and closes out the show, marching left, right, left, another step. Keep smiling as you go." - Needtobreathe

Beginning

I went to see my new college form tutor today. I've actually been to see him several times this week, but today was especially significant. The first time was after I had a semi-nervous breakdown over Spanish, the second was because he arranged to see me, today was again because he arranged to see me. None of that is really relevant, but he said something that a) surprised me and b) amused me:

"You can come to me at anytime, even if it's just to moan about something."

I responded with "you'll be fed up of me by the time I leave", which is probably true, but that's the inner pessimist in me coming out. He then repeated himself, saying "You can moan to me about anything". It made me think about how different college is in comparison to school. At school, I moaned to my form tutor a lot, my parents always used to tell me that she was there for me to talk to when I had a problem, and she was always amazing when it came to making me see things from a different perspective. I'd go as far as saying that I don't know anybody who gives advice as well as she does. But, and this is something that I feel almost uncomfortable saying, my new tutor, so far, seems exactly the same (except a) he's a man and b) he's not her).

I realised earlier that I was finding it weird barely seeing my tutor, because I'm SO used to seeing my school tutor every day (every day for 5 years, basically). I always expected that I'd find it hard to go to him if I had a problem, because it took me a long time to be able to let myself do that with my school tutor...but it hasn't taken me long at all. If I've left school with anything that I didn't have when I started it, I've definitely left with a hell of a lot more confidence.

Speaking of confidence, I joined a choir two weeks ago. Yes, an actual choir. Me. I'd have never done that in school because I was never confident enough while the school still had a choir (it seemed to disappear every other year then come back again). The smallest things can be the biggest victories, can't they?

I've kind of given up on maintaining high school friendships. I've realised that 'what will be, will be' and that if I'm supposed to be friends with people, I will be. So far, things are going well and we all seem to be holding it together while also making new friends and getting used to the fact that this is our life now. College. 7 hours a day. 5 days a week. It's hard, yes, I'm not going to lie about that. We've jokingly formed a club of people who are depressed about college. Thankfully, I seem to be slowly leaving that club now. I'm getting on with it, there's not much more that I can do. I came home today almost wishing that today was Thursday, and tomorrow Friday, because today was the best day I've had in about two weeks and I didn't really want the week to end while it had the potential to get better.

In other news: my blog finally has a purpose again! My posts are no longer me trying to find something to fill the posts with.

I've also decided to end my posts in a slightly different way from now on..enjoy ;)

Besos ♥
Rachel

"No need to try to look into the future, when you still haven't dealt with the past." - Tim Minchin

Monday 19th July - 6:27pm, account of final two days

I slept in the tent with just Lauren on Thursday night. Jemma and some of the others slept outside. Just after we went to bed, someone shouted that Catherine was being peed on by a toad and Slaven and Jemma found it hilarious. Slaven was laughing and saying he had never seen it before. When we got up in the morning, there wasn’t enough for breakfast because certain people had just been helping themselves again. I ended up having crisps with Shannon. Lauren and Natalie were chefs. We packed our bags and tents and put them into the jeep and we got into kayaks and went for about half an hour to a place where we then got changed. I was in a kayak with Margaret which was a bit annoying but it did mean that I was with someone who could kayak well and I did push myself hard to try and impress her rather than be a bit lazy and rely mostly on her.

When we stopped kayaking we had a really short walk to a bar where we got changed into dry clothes. I borrowed 10 Kuna from Lauren so I could buy a drink then me, her, Shannon and Natalie got on a bus to go to the Starigrad campsite. We had a really nice discussion on the bus about what we’d learnt and what we thought about the experience. It was good because we all spoke honestly and we seemed to share similar experiences on stuff such as Lauren said she didn’t think we’d get along which I thought too. It was weird being that honest with somebody but somehow it also felt normal/natural.

Back at Starigrad, we put up tents then we went gift shopping. It was nice to spend some time being civilized and doing something that felt normal. Sam held a collection and we all chipped in to buy gifts for Slaven and Margaret. We got Margaret a mug with a map of Croatia on it and we got Slaven a bandana because he has lost one while on expedition with us. When we finished shopping, me and Lauren went to get showered and tried to make ourselves look presentable for the meal out. We snuck into the caravan site showers because they were apparently nicer than the other showers. I definitely got close to Lauren over the last few days which I really liked. We also went and bought postcards for everybody to sign for Slav and Margaret in place of a thank you card.

Everybody really enjoyed the last meal. We went to a pizza/pasta place. I was sat next to Natalie on my left, Lauren on my right and Slaven opposite. Miss Morris and Parko presented everybody with an “award” which was a bracelet bought at a campsite shop and me and Jacob won them for when our kayak capsized because Miss Morris found it hilarious. After we all got our awards, Jacob (team leader) stood up and presented Slav and Margaret with their gifts. Everybody was laughing and joking and lots of pictures were taken including two full group shots.

When we got back to the campsite we all went down to the beach area near the hotel and hung out there for a while. Slaven joined us too and we both laughed at a random woman dancing by herself rather wildly. Lauren decided she wanted to go to bed so I went too. We had just settled into bed when we started to get harassed by some random German boy. We ended up being harassed by several of them until Margaret came out and shouted at them. Me, Lauren and Miss Morris ended up going back down to the beach to get the others then we went to bed.

The next morning, we all got up ridiculously early and everybody was ready to leave at 8am but the buses were 15 minutes late which amused us because usually we were the late ones. On the way to the airport I was in a bus with Lauren, Natalie, Shannon and Izzy although we spent most of the time sleeping until we got close to Split. We passed through a town called Trogir and a market and we all discussed how we expected our expedition to be more like buying food from a market.

In the airport, we said goodbye to Slaven and the other bus drivers which was really weird and then we went to check in. There was a problem because Richard had never bothered to inform the airport that we’d have extra kit bags on the way home so I had to empty the majority of my big rucksack so one of the kit bags could go through as part of my baggage. I was a bit annoyed about it because I got volunteered into doing it and Margaret was useless as usual.

It was really dull waiting in the airport but it went quite quickly. We all camped out next to a wall underneath the flight board. The flight was OK, I was in 23A but I swapped with Catherine so I was actually in 23C because she wanted the window seat. Jemma was in between us. When we landed in Heathrow, we collected our bags and my big rucksack got filled again. Miss Morris was really supportive about it and kept telling me it’d be alright. We then met up with a World Challenge man to hand over kit and also Jasmine’s dad who picked her up because they were flying to Portugal the next day. We then said goodbye to Margaret and we went to get the coach home (which was also late). When we got back to school it was about 9:40pm and we were greeted by parents, Miss Bolton, Mr O’Brien and his daughter.

Since being home, I’ve slept a lot and have started to believe in myself more. I miss the times we spent as a group, Slaven's random stories and the water of the Zrmanja River for definite and I’ve been pining for a campfire quite badly. I also miss the coach journeys. I feel like I’ve changed and become more relaxed. I also feel like what I want from life has changed too.

Friday 16th July - 8:00am, Muškovci

Yesterday morning we all got up and Jacob and I made breakfast. We then made sandwiches and got shouted at by some of the others for being slightly late. It wasn’t our fault though because people were late turning up for breakfast so we couldn’t just get on with lunch until breakfast was totally over. When the bus arrived it was playing Misery by Maroon 5 which cheered up my morning and although I probably shouldn’t have, I stuck around by it until the song was over. We then kayaked down (up?) the Zrmanja River and also to the River Krupa. We stopped for lunch by a beautiful waterfall but there was a problem with the lunch because a barrel containing half of the sandwiches and the crisps hadn’t been brought on a kayak so some people didn’t get sandwiches. Margaret annoyed me again because she ate Joe’s sandwich then tried to tell me that I’d told her to so I was really unimpressed by her. Thankfully, someone from the kayak trip behind us had spotted the barrel, brought it and given it to Slaven so I could hand out the sandwiches about 20 minutes later. I was with Jacob in a kayak and the first part of the journey was relatively smooth however we managed to capsize twice within five minutes during the second part of the journey. Basically, Jemma and Catherine hit a tree and were hanging out of their kayak and even though Jacob paddled backwards, our kayak drifted and hit them. They ended up staying in the kayak and Jacob and I ended up underneath ours. I managed not to panic much but it was hard lifting it off me. It was pretty horrible considering I’m scared of being plunged into water and I ended up having to grip Miss Morris and Mr Parkinson’s kayak while Margaret pulled me back into mine and Jacob’s. My life jacket (that did absolutely nothing to help me float at all…) got stuck though so Joe had to jump out of his kayak and help me again which I was really thankful for. We then capsized again when we hit Chris and Sam who got stuck at the top of a small rapid and again, we ended up in the water and they stayed in their kayak. It was funnier this time though because I ended up just standing on a rock laughing and I think even Slaven was amused by it this time.

We arrived at the campsite relatively quickly so people just relaxed for a few hours in the water and around the table. Most people went jumping off the big waterfall but I stayed at the campsite and bathed my leg in the water because it was stinging from when the boat capsized for the first time and I scraped it on several rocks. Margaret decided to have a go at me because I moved all of the barrels except two - because the other two had belongings on so I didn’t want to move belongings too - and apparently “all of the barrels had to be moved as soon as we arrived” which nobody had actually told us.

Jacob and I cooked tea and I kind of lost the will to live at several points because he had problems cooking the soup (though it was Jacob who was supposed to be doing that anyway...) We also had problems with the spaghetti because our water source is 20 minutes away so everything was slow. Natalie helped calm me down when I was starting to get upset by it all. Some people said they liked it and Miss Morris said it was the best meal we’ve had so hopefully it was worth it. I was proud of myself for cooking from scratch considering the circumstances.

After dinner we discussed what we’ve learnt about ourselves while we’ve been here. I realised that I’ve actually learnt a lot and I feel like I’ve faced a lot of fears that I didn’t think I’d face. I challenged myself with the trekking, kayaking and staying away from home and I feel like I’ve grown in confidence. We also talked about how I was the only girl from my year and Miss Morris talked about how I’ve probably come on the biggest journey because of it.

We all toasted marshmallows around the campfire last night and Slaven played his guitar for a few hours. It was genuinely one of those moments where there was nowhere else I would prefer to be. It made me realise that I’d kind of fallen in love with the idea of a campfire. Today we’re kayaking then going back to the Starigrad campsite then going sightseeing then out for our group meal.

Wednesday 14th July - 10:31pm, Kaštel Žegarski

Breakfast at the hut this morning was rubbish. Most other people had beanfeast Bolognese but I had a breakfast bar I had leftover from yesterday. I was packed and organised pretty quickly so I had enough time to chill out and just do nothing for a while. Catherine didn’t want her Bolognese so Sam made her eat a bit of a pine cone which was hilarious. I bought three bookmarks for mum, dad and Jude from the stall outside the hut as well.

I walked really well today and didn’t cry or panic at all. Margaret had us playing an aeroplane game before we set off where she sketched a plane on the ground and we had to stand either in the engine, wings, passenger or luggage depending on how we felt we were within the group. I stood between passenger and luggage but Louis said I should be in the engine because of how I got on with it the best I could. It was nice of Louis to say it because it made me believe that I hadn’t just annoyed people which I thought I had and it definitely gave me confidence. I only stopped for stuff like laces or if others stopped too. I was often ahead of others and walking quickly. It was almost a good thing that I struggled so much on the way up because I hadn’t paid attention to the surroundings at all and so the walk down was refreshing and I got to enjoy the sight much more than the others did. When we were walking down one of the parts towards the end, a German woman behind us slipped over and was screaming in pain so me, Jemma, Catherine and Jacob stopped and Catherine went back to see if anybody needed a phone because we could’ve got the satellite phone from Margaret. The man with her who spoke English said they were fine thanks and he rushed off down to get mountain rescue. We met up with everybody else at the shop and chilled out for a while and had ice creams. I bought a bracelet, pens and a keyring.

On the final stretch of path, I was walking with Jacob when we came across Catherine, Jemma and Sam. Jemma said that Catherine was close to fainting and I knew that Jacob felt ill, Sam had already tried to find Margaret and it was impractical for Jemma to go on ahead with her diabetes so I walked on ahead and pushed on hard to the group. It was mostly in the sun with minimal shade and I had no map and my huge bag so it was really tough but I just kept thinking about Catherine and kept going with only two really brief stops for water. There was one point where I could have turned three different ways so I had to just guess and thankfully I picked the right way. I made the journey in about 20 minutes which I’m pretty sure was really good considering. When I reached the group and told them what was happening, Louis and Joe rushed off and ran to them and Miss Morris and Jasmine went off with rehydration sachets. Slaven went off too. I was really disappointed in Margaret because she didn’t even look at me or move when I explained the problem - even though that’s her job as team leader. Ugh! Jacob wants to complain about her, I'm not surprised really...

When we got back to the Starigrad campsite I had to do the shopping with Izzy, Chris, Natalie and Jacob and we got loads of food and stuff that we needed such as cooking equipment. We had way too much food so Jacob and I had to put some back and I think the woman at the till guessed that we were stressed and she knocked some money off the shopping so that we didn’t have to go into Friday’s budget which we would have had to do.

We then got on the buses to the wild campsite. I was on a bus with Jemma, Lauren, Shannon, Jacob, Sam and Margaret and it was a fun journey. Margaret slept for the journey so she stayed out of our fun which I was also glad about. We all had a laugh which was nice because we hadn’t really been doing that.

We’re now at the wild campsite and are going river kayaking tomorrow and will be moving to another new campsite for the evening. At the moment I’m sat round the campfire with Lauren, Chris, Jacob, Jemma, Joe, Oliver and Shannon and I’m listening to my iPod while Joe is killing ants and Shannon is trying to carve her name into the bench. Natalie has been throwing up all evening so I ended up helping her and Chris with tea because she didn’t do much. Margaret left us to it this evening so Izzy led the meeting and it was much more relaxed without her there. Catherine can’t sleep because Jasmine’s bag has leaked and her stuff is wet. Everybody seems to be getting along well and mum sent me a text saying “Dad says you are a star” after I texted them about the Catherine thing. We have proper toilets here which we haven’t had at the mountain hut so people are in a better mood about that. I’m glad we do because the toilets at the hut were never clean and the smell made people feel sick towards the end.

Tuesday 13th July - 7:25pm, Mountain hut

I was on a top bunk last night and only Miss Morris and Margaret were as well so it was almost the exact opposite of sleeping in a tent. I was also almost on a proper bed which was a bonus. I woke up one of the earliest so I had chance to gather my thoughts before everybody else got up. I had a horrible chocolate and banana flapjack for breakfast because we were low on breakfast. Never liked banana...

We went trekking up a mountain earlier and I struggled at first but I was definitely better than yesterday although Margaret threatened me with flying home because I asked to stop and open my water bottle. How pathetic is that?! Her attitude towards our team is getting on my nerves so much, she seems to just dislike us a lot. Joe was really supportive this morning and most of the group were amazing. He even made me let him carry my bag for part of the way because he wanted me to be able to get up the mountain. Unlike Margaret, he encouraged me but also made it clear I needed to get on with it, Margaret just tended to shout at me and she wasn’t nice at all. I’m accountant tomorrow with Sam. We had pasta for tea and I got a wash in the stream near the hut. Normally, I’d never do that anywhere…but being here it just felt normal. I went with Catherine and Jemma and literally stood in a stream in my underwear and got washed even though Joe, Oliver and Louis were around somewhere making a dam. I don’t know why but I just didn’t care and it was really liberating.

Slaven has been keeping us sane and entertained - he’s definitely part of our group now and there’s just something about him that draws people to him. He always has really interesting stories to tell and listens to everything we say to him in a way that Margaret doesn’t seem to. I’m chef with Jacob on Thursday and I’m looking forward to having some responsibility because I’ve really missed it to be honest. At the moment I’m sat at a bench with Chris, Sam, Lauren and Jemma discussing the accounting and telling random stories. We’re also moaning and just getting our thoughts out and offloading what’s bothering us. I quite like that we’re doing it because I’ve missed just talking to people like this over the past day or two.

Monday 12th July - 9:15pm, Planinarski Dom mountain hut

Yesterday when we got up we had some breakfast (cornflakes) then headed out kayaking. Slaven showed us what to do and I was steering the kayak. I was in with Shannon. She tended to nag me a lot at first which annoyed me but she calmed down after a while and I enjoyed it. I suppose we were both trying to get used to it so it wasn't a big deal. I also think that I was reasonably good at it considering I’ve never done anything like it before at all. We kayaked to the mouth of the Zrmanja River then relaxed there for a few hours. It was boiling hot so we just sat around then went in the water. Izzy had never learnt to swim but she was really brave and she even jumped in from quite a height so everybody was really proud of her. Sam was our team leader and he did a really good job. Some people were saying he didn’t but I thought he did. When we kayaked back I was with Oliver and it was much more relaxed than the journey there. Everybody decided they wanted to swap kayak partners which was fair enough but I felt that the pairings reflected the fact that I was the only girl in my year when I was left without a partner and so was Oliver. I didn’t mind though because I didn’t get nagged by him and we worked well as a team. When we got back we all had showers then packed up the tents and got on coaches to the new campsite at Starigrad. Once we got there, we put tents up and Lauren and Izzy made tea. We had pasta with dolmio sauce. I got a good night’s sleep last night which I was so thankful for. There was an incident with Margaret though. The campsite is full of ants so Joe said we shouldn’t leave any food out at all. With that in mind, Margaret decided to leave the cornflakes out so they got wasted. Ugh.

This morning we were really unorganised but I had watermelon for breakfast which is probably the best food I could have had. We had to dump the stuff we didn’t need and locked it in a room in the campsite reception. We filled our day sacks and put them inside the big sacks. We trekked about 5.5 miles and I really struggled. I’m pretty convinced that I had at least 5 panic attacks whilst trying to climb the first third and I was literally in tears and crying that I couldn’t do it for the most part of that. Margaret had to walk me up. I was also very dehydrated though which gave me breathing problems which is probably where the panicking came from and Margaret made me stop and drink a full litre of water before making me wet my head under a tap in the village at the entrance to the national park. She kept telling me a story about the tree we were standing underneath which began to really grate on me. Slaven came back to see if I was alright which I thought was nice of him but was probably also his job...

Jacob stuck with me for most of the way which really surprised me. He made me laugh during the last third of the journey and kept my spirits up so I owe him a lot. When we finally got to the mountain hut, everybody had already been there ages and they all clapped for us which was lovely of them and made me feel like I could finally relax and that people weren’t mad at me which I thought they might have been. We relaxed for a while and Catherine and Sam made tea. We had the same as last night to eat. Currently, I’m sitting at a big bench outside of the hut with Jacob, Izzy, Jemma, Lauren, Jasmine, Louis, Joe, Slaven and Miss Morris. This evening has been really good, people have just been chatting and we’ve acted like a proper team today which has been nice. My role today was safety which I didn’t think I did well at considering the circumstances but Margaret told me that by having to walk slowly, I was making others walk slowly which was a good safety aspect.

Sunday 11th July - 6:08am, Novigrad campsite, Croatia

When we finally arrived here in Croatia, we queued up for passport control where I got my passport stamped (yay!) We collected our baggage but mine and Natalie’s sleeping mats were missing and Louis’ bag was too. Joe and a few others immediately started ranting at us about it and telling me and Natalie not to mention the fact that our mats had gone missing which really annoyed me because he had no right to say that and I was allowed to be annoyed about it. I didn’t mention it much anyway because Louis was trying to find out about his bag and I was just staying out of the way of Joe who was in a pretty bad mood. I figured it wasn't very important to report a lost sleeping mat anyway. Our tour guide tried to sort out Louis' bag but it was still in Heathrow so he arranged for it to be put on the next flight over. Miss Morris told me that we’d be stopping at a supermarket where we’d probably be able to buy new sleeping mats anyway so I got over it pretty quickly. Once we’d sorted out the problems we changed some money and got on the coach - this time also accompanied by our tour guide Slaven. I was also a bit annoyed that people who hadn’t had any problems happen to them were in a worse mood than people that had and kept trying to start stupid arguments in the airport and for a while on the coach. It was a relief to sit by myself next to the window and just drift into my own world for a while to relax and ignore the people arguing behind me.

Those sorting out the shopping list called me over because apparently they needed my input because I’m vegetarian. I gave my input but they wouldn’t let me sit back down so I had to sit through a ridiculous amount of arguing before I just gave up and moved back to my seat regardless. We stopped off at a supermarket called Plodine to buy food for Saturday and Sunday where Natalie and I went to get sleeping mats (mine’s pink) and we all then sat outside and waited while the others argued their way around the supermarket and took forever even though they had a shopping list. I tried talking to Margaret in the supermarket but she seems really unreluctant to talk to any of us at all really. We then arrived at our campsite about half an hour later. We spent forever putting up tents while Jasmine and Louis made us tea. It only took us so long because we were in the dark due to our delayed flight and the amount of time spent at the supermarket. We were also all annoyed because some tent parts were missing (and in Louis’ bag…) and Margaret told us we had to put up the teachers’ tents too which we hadn’t expected and it didn’t seem fair - after all, we didn’t sign up to be slaves. After tea we had a group meeting (led by Margaret) and talked about jobs and similar stuff and I’m timekeeper for tomorrow (today technically). I got a bit upset before the meeting because I was just generally fed up and everybody was on edge…as well as the fact that I’d lost my mat and it just messed up the day a bit. If I slept last night, it must have only been for an hour or so. I was squashed in between Lauren and Natalie. Lauren kept saying stuff in her sleep everytime I moved and Natalie had her knee in my back. Lovely. Miss Morris had to put a bag next to our tent and it meant that I didn’t even fit properly in the tent. Great fun. Shannon, Izzy and some of the others went down to the beach in the evening and picked up 3 stalkers who came throwing stones at the tents so Miss Morris sat outside on watch for them, so nobody slept much then either.