Have a meme

10 things you wish you could say to ten different people right now...
a) It saddens me you don't know how important you are.
b) I miss you - I wish we could go back to the way things were.
c) I love you to pieces and I just wish I could tell you that I miss you as much as you miss me.
d) I wish I knew you.
e) Why did you leave me here alone? I miss you so damn much it hurts to breathe.
f) Do you even care how annoying you are?
g) You're a parasite, social interaction is all you think about and if you arent the center of attention you go crazy.
h) I'm worried about you - I hope you're okay.
i)Meh.
j) I wish I knew the truth.

9 things about yourself...
a) I love sushi
b) Reading folklore is one of many my favourite forms of procrastination
c) When I was a kid, I wanted to be a vet.
d) Rather than actual pets, I had a variety of cyber pets growing up. My favourite was a dalmatian called chuff 64 who lived to 100.
e) My favourite Disney film is Mulan.
f) I can't ride a bike. (Though not for want of trying).
g) I can ride a horse.
h) I am a pescetarian - I don't eat meat, but will eat fish without complaint.
i) I like the smell of vanilla.

8 ways to win your heart...
a) Be polite. I like manners.
b) Don't use me.
c) Don't moan about every little thing. That seriously ticks me off.
d) Include me - don't forget about me just because I'm quiet.
e) Eat sushi with me :3
f) Don't treat me like I'm a loser. I know I'm a loser, don't have to be reminded XD
g) Don't be two faced. That REALLY PISSES ME OFF. If you have something to say, say it to my face, even if you think I won't like it.
h) Make me laugh

7 things that cross your mind a lot...
a) ..Hungry...
b) ...Tired...
c) Wonder when .... is coming out.
d) Christmas Time \o/
e) Random songs
f) fklhbddbh Am I going to...
g) Memories

6 things you do before falling asleep...
a) Listen to music
b) Get undressed and stuff
c) Check my emails
d) Reflect
e) Check my phone
f) Think about how tired I am.

5 people who mean a lot...
a) Mother
b) Father
c) Elle
d) Lucy
e) Laney


4 things you're wearing right now...
a) Pink sweater from expo
b) jeans
c) underwear
d) socks

3 songs that you listen to often (currently)...
a) Take on me, Aha
b) Whispers in the Dark, Skillet
c) Echoes, Veronica's Veil

2 things you want to do before you die...
a) Have something notable published
b) Feel I've accomplished something

1 confession...
a) I'm allergic to chilli

Fail in the Kitchen

A slightly humorous anecdote from our kitchen:

If ever there is a food related odour in the kitchen, that is ever so slightly repulsive, one of my flatmates always blames me. Be it burnt toast,egg - I get the glares. I could understand this notion,were it not for the fact that it is completely unfounded - I don't cook very much.

Anyway, yesterday I was in the kitchen and this particular flatmate came in. One of the others had been cooking with eggs and immediately this flatmate just glared at me. The only thing I could think of that she was likely to believe was to tell her I was allergic to eggs.

Forgetting of course, that I was holding my tea for that night, a packet of egg fried rice.

On Christmas Eve

It all started the week before Christmas Eve, a bracing, slippery December morning. The interval between heavy snow and pouring rain, in which breathing itself was an intake of chill.

Tying her scarf the way she always did, she was not unaffected by this change in atmosphere - after all, a cold or a flu virus is a most unattractive thing. But, as she stepped onto the luridly painted bus and reaching out to pay her fare, those kind of thoughts were immediately swept aside and replaced with ones of her destination.

There was a book store in town that up until the fifties had been a tea shop. In her youth, she had visited with her grandmother and been treated to cream tea and scones. Now that she herself was a grandmother, it was a great comfort to revisit and find it relatively unchanged. The young man who owned it upon her return had inserted labyrinthine bookshelves around her beloved tea shop, filled with masterpieces. His dream, he once told her over a cup of chamomile, was to be the next Tim Waterstone. She made it her business to visit the shop once every year to purchase Christmas presents for her friends and family - presents stained with the odour of tea leaves and fairy cakes.

This year she stepped off the bus as usual, ready for a chat with the shop owner. Fumbling in her purse for a handful of change, she turned onto the high street, where she was met with an unexpected and unwelcome surprise. The shop door was barred and padlocked. The store window, usually decorated lavishly with hardbacks was decorated only by orange paint. In the centre was a single sheet of paper written on forlornly with what she identified as the shop keeper’s own hand. Moving closer to read it, she gasped as she saw the contents.

Due to several conversations with her grandchildren and studies of local newspapers, she knew quite well of the latest phenomena that was sweeping the nation. This so called ‘internet’. What she did not, however know was the reasoning behind it. The point of it. What possessed people to spend their lives staring at a screen and furthermore being content? If that was the new generation then she wondered for the world. It was the internet that had caused the closure of her favourite shop - though not personally. As the letter said, it was through internet book sales. She did not need to read the rest, only needed to go home.

Two days after this event occurred, her grandchildren visited bearing sweets from the supermarket. Her eldest granddaughter, more acute than the others, was the first to inquire as to her mood. Much soured by the knowledge her favourite place was gone, she was confused by her granddaughter’s reaction - upon hearing the story, the fifteen year old erupted into laughter and told her that there was quite an easy solution to the problem in the village library.

It was through desperation alone that she followed her granddaughter there - never in all of her years of buying presents had one arrived late. In the back of her mind, she debated the various scenarios that could take place in the library - perhaps a sale of some description?

As they arrived, her granddaughter immediately requested a computer and bewildered she followed. She knew now that this was something new and in the back of her mind a suspicious strand flew. Typing in her details, her granddaughter beamed and asked what it was that she was looking for, leaving the old woman to realise that she was trapped. Trapped between the solid rock of no presents and callous internet. Internet which had thrown her into this mess in the first place.

Sighing inwardly, she pulled a chair from the next table and flopped into the seat. There was nothing left she could do. Reciting the names of several books and absently gazing at the screen while her granddaughter swiftly typed the names into the machine. It was a marvellous thing, she could not help but think - filled with colour and movement from various screens as her granddaughter searched, appearing like some kind of Siren before her. Her mesmerisation, however, was drawn to a close as her granddaughter called to her. That only one name was coming up to sell the books she wanted. Rather than recite it, she showed the web page onscreen.

It was the website of her beloved tea store, established the same day as the young man took over. Although she did not understand at first, eventually she took in that it sold the same books from the shop, but cheaper and in brighter colours. The authors of such masterpieces would surely have turned in their grave to see their fine works bargained off like cheap meat - the same way that she turned in her chair to leave the library.

Perhaps it will come as no surprise to you that nobody got any presents that year.

Incomplete

Transparent, with no finger tips,
Man made you
Just to be
Dependent.
And so I wonder
When was I
Intoxicated
By this mechanical Eden?
Though scentless,
Shapeless,
Without a soul
And no door to walk inside,
I am sheltered
Within this paradise
Of artifice.

Concerning Milk

As I write this, I am wrapped up in a blanket and supping hot chocolate - fighting off flu.

Fresher's week has come and gone, leaving behind a legacy of nasty viruses. Two weeks into the term and classes are all ready looking empty.

I never realised how much I loved my bed until today.

Transistorised, and anodised

I had my first lesson of the second year today - Medieval and Renaissance Literature, i.e. Chaucer and the Canterbury Tales. When I read on the reading list that we were going to study him, I was neither worried nor excited. I studied the Wife of Bath in college, but gained little from it as the teacher I had was very much a joker. While I liked him as a person and found him entertaining, hardly anything he taught me sunk in,as he spent a great deal of his teaching time poking fun at the material. It was not at all fun going into an exam room knowing nothing but a handful of 'handy' anecdotes.

Influences

Here's an idea I got from Dan and stole - an account of my influences. As writers, we are often asked to explain them and the opportunity to get them in writing is rare. So...here they are (you never know, it might surprise you):

I don't remember having a specific favourite book as a child - I loved reading and would engross myself in any book i could find. There are so many books and authors from then that have influenced me - Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl, E. B. White. In secondary school, i talked the librarian into letting me read Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected - she believed a book of such macabre brilliance would affect an eleven year old. I believe she was right, for I was never quite the same.

I began to read Harry Potter, on the other hand, at around ten and loved the fantasy aspect of it. Fantasy stories carry a flame for me, as reality in my opinion is quite a boring thing. When i was about twelve, I read 'The Heartstone Odyssey', a story about an Indian dancer named Chandra, who sets out on a mission to find the heartstone for the talking mice who request it of her - a beautifully charming book that I read countless times over the course of my school career. The more I wrote as I grew up, the more I combined normality with something quite impossible. I don't remember at what age I decided I wanted to be a writer -wherever I went I carried a pen and paper and that has always been the consensus. Before I could write, I drew all the time.

Writing for a very long time offers advantages, such as the ability to rifle through scripts produced years before. I know for a fact that I have never really been frightened by the notion of violence, rather, curious of it - because one of my earliest stories involved an axe murderer. I used to be a great animal lover and would go to great lengths to involve a talking horse in the plot. Much of this is down to the fact that at the time I was writing, I was quite young and influenced by shows such as Starla and the Jewel Riders (I miss that show >:) and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

When I was in my late teens, I heard for the first time 'Bring me to Life' by Evanescence - back then, it was the anthem to my life and moved me - the lyrics spoke out to me as if I was the only one who heard them.




Evanescence became and still are, one of my favourite bands, I fell in love with their mystical sound. 'Bring me to life' had reached out to me, and now each song spoke to me personally.



Evanescence was one of my first favourite bands and inpspired me to write poetry.

By this point, I was 14 and heavily into the 'mysterious', 'gothic' and 'horror'. I went to my local library, where the librarian recommended Edgar Allan Poe.



The copy of Poe our library had was very battered indeed. Anyway, upon inspection I learned that it contained 'The Raven', a verse I had heard about but never got around to reading. Once I did, I felt like I had skipped the enlightenment level all together. Within days I had scoured our library shelves for everything I could find.

After leaving school, I entered college and began to read the classics. In my first year, i studied 'Wuthering Heights' and 'Frankenstein' and loved them both. In the second, our teacher gave us a booklet with several stories to analyse inside it- one of which was 'The Company of Wolves' by Angela Carter.




Angela Carter has been very influential on my writing in recent years, a favourite author. Her writing is profoundly original, making use of magic realism and science fiction, writing the darker counter parts of Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, Little Red Riding Hood and Puss in Boots. Carter skillfully wove themes of gothicism, eroticism, feminism, violence, surrealism, myth and contemporary society into her work. Reading her work gave me high hopes for the careful tapestry I might someday be able to produce.

Up until this point, I haven't mentioned manga, mostly because it didn't enter my life until very late when compared with everything else I have mentioned so far. I didn't pick up a manga novel until I was 16 at least, and even then it was just to ask my friend why the heck it was backwards. Even so, manga and anime are very firm influences in my writing because they are, without a doubt, one of my favourite genres. Mangas such as Death Note and Immortal Rain reinforce what Poe and Carter's writing first defined.