Stressed.

I am stressed.
Why are you stressed, Rachel? You might very validly ask.
I am stressed because a) I've had three weeks of holidays and then within two days of being back seem to have run myself into the ground, although I ought to be able to deal.

b) I feel like a fail, because I am a disorganised leader in a disorganised cub group, who don't tell me where they need me to be except in vague notes, and who aren't there when I turn up (late, although I arrived the first time this evening at the hall early... but had to rearrange my plans).

c) Every time I think I have a handle on something, some serious shit goes down.

d) At which point my father takes it upon himself to point out how shit I am at organisation, how I should be working and how I don't really have any right to not be able to deal.

e) I haven't got the balls (or the physical stamina and motivation) to walk over to the town hall and have a face-to-face discussion with Mike about wanting to drop scouts and just do cubs, even though I know doing both is too much for me, and I am knackered. I am going to take the cowards way out and write him an upstanding formal British e-mail relaying my reasons.

f) I wish hibernation was a human deal, and not just for chubby animals.

e) My bedroom is a festering pile of shit. As is every piece of technology I own. I cannot afford anything new at all.

ARGH.

The emptiness of revision.

It is not working.
I have tried, I have failed, and now my head is little more than a sieve with holes just big enough for anything useful to slip through into the land of the infuriatingly forgotten.
Philosophy and Ethics is impossible. There are too many names. There are too many topics. There is too little clarity and distinction between them.

I have tried explaining aloud, reading, making charts, making posters, typing things up, typing things at Alison in MSN, but none of it is going through.

Anyone have any ideas how to make names and ideas stick coherently, or do I need to get down to B&Q for some superglue?

Built from the wine up...

This week has been absurd. In a bad way. The bad sort of absurd which makes you want to ram your face into a wall untill it bleeds.

First off, I was pretty darned ill. By this I mean I was forced to take more than one day out of sixth form because I could not think straight or breathe. The middle day was spent trying to navigate my drugged up and unsightly way around Birmingham city and university alone, getting quite flustered but being too proud to show it. Things I saw on that little adventure:

• Razor points in the train toilets. Bloody ridiculous: anyone attempting some facial topiary on a train is asking for trouble and is lucky to leave with their nose still attached.
• A full grown man reading Eclipse ashamedly on the train. He was not remotely young. He was on Eclipse which sickeningly means he'd endured the first two books (and probably in an equally public manner) - shocking.
• Smiling at dashing sandwich dispensory staff gets you a sandwich - at standard price.
• Nobody at Birmingham knows where the English department is; apart from myself, and I found it as a fluke.

The morning was (as I attempted to text my dad) 'a hotbed of disaster', until I orientated myself, was given a cup of tea for free, and drowned my sorrows with a bit of shopping (new coloured pencils - score!)

The afternoon was lovely however, with a spicy-spicy mexican burrito and an outline of a gorgeous and enticing looking course. Also having somehow found time to chat to the Head of Admissions and encouraged him to reconsider the A-Level I already have, which he'd overlooked. Score Two!

Came home and went straight from the station to another station: the Fire Station. Learned about weapons of torture hitherto undescribable. Anything that fires iron filings and water so fast they can cut through a man is something to be avoided I say. Came home, crashed out, wept a little, dragged myself into the next day.

Was ill until I decided I couldn't afford to miss today so went into school to find myself faced with a number of prospects:

• Interview at Warwick which I still have yet to have any real feelings either dreadful or delighted about. Later discovered today was the deadline for the coursework and faced the pressure by churning out a commentary in two hours, sending Mr Anderson a mildly freaked out e-mail entitled 'PAINFULLY URGENT' and posting the bloody thing.
• Art that is 'unmarkable' because frankly there's not enough of it.
• The need to summon up some form of title and inspiration for History Coursework.
• Chasing the world about changing the date of my exams because of aforementioned interview which, for some reason involved talking to no less than 5 people about it.
• Nobody seeming to know anything about an essay we were most definitely set.
• Latin certificate - yay!

This evening was a delerious haze of writing frantically, arranging, posting and drinking a nice amount of wine. Decisory factor here: wine makes my life.  ALSO, acquired Radiohead's new album and was grateful to be able to zone out to it after sending off the portfolio from hell. Every cloud, eh?

As to the situation now, I am sitting slightly drunk in full-body bunnyrabbit pajamas, lazing about and listening to Radiohead. Awesome.

A sensible discussion...

Dee: I never read the history plays - never really wanted to.
Rachel: Ah, but Richard III is GOOD! He basically goes around killing everyone an-
Dee: They're all just politically motivated works of fiction-
Rachel: Most things are politically motivated works of fiction.
Dee: Like your face.

There you have it. My face is a politically motivated work of fiction. Who knew?

Bottles and bottles of arachnids...

It's meant to be the tertiary text, but I have just read about twelve reviews of the Propeller Richard III I saw back in November and my eyes are beginning to go fuzzy. I'm trying to work out - because my memory has betrayed me - whose finger he bit off after killing them. It could be a couple of people (Anne? Edward?) and for each of them it would have a very different significance - and connection with The Changeling (where Deflores cuts of Piraquo's finger after killing him).

None of the reviews mention it - not even the lovely thorough ones. Some of them mention 'finger biting' but remain bloody ambiguous like an uncertain and vague bitch of research hell. Er- but yes, this Richard III business is becoming a bit of an obsession.

Also, had a moment of AHA! while reading a review on a blog. The Blog's subtitle was "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there." and I had a nice little 'oh-ho, I know where you're coming from there, old laddy, old boy!" That quote's from The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley - actually, it's the first sentence, and all - and that gives me a sad sort of joy to have floating around in my head...

More cheerful having done excesses of research and also installing my SHINY new HiFi system, which is beautiful, and which involved me basically reorganising my room and shelving again... everything's always better when it's a bit fresher, I think. Have also moved the MASS of tickets and posters and notes and whatnot from my pinboard (it was becoming painfully close to collapsing everywhere) and made it all into a montage on my wall.

That's all for now - I love that I have five or so more solid days to dilly-dally and over-complicate this essay. Hurrah!

Oooh, bonus anecdote! I was faffing about in the bathroom looking for something in the cupboards and found that my uncle had left us a gift in one of them. Delightful! I hear you cry - What a nice man to do such a thing. Yes, yes, if it had been a bath bomb, or a necklace or something other than a dead, moldy mouse and its brother's skull I would have been overjoyed. Unfortunately not. You may be surprised to hear that I was not surprised by this and simply held my breath and went to inform the parentfolk. I blame tradition - a rather longstanding one which I may properly explain in another blog, at another time, when my eyes aren't eroded by Dicky 3 reviews.

Nanight, lovelies xx

The last few days have been, quite frankly, shit.
Medicating with ridiculous dubstep music, loudspeakers and salt & vinegar crisps. I am what they call "hardcore".

Also brazenly handing in an Ethics essay late. Rebel.

What A Week (Part 1)

So first Leeds turn around and hate on me, then Newcastle want me to answer questions and then Birmingham offer me a place. It's crazy! But really damned exciting.

Not so gutted about Leeds as they were a plain English course, and because the best thing about them, really, was their lecture hall architecture.

Biiiirmingham, Birmingham, how I love thee. But also, a bit freaked out that they've not taken Film Studies into consideration with my offer, so I have to get 3 As THIS year, or they aren't interested.

This offer is subject to you obtaining

GCE A level
Grade A in English Literature
and Grades AA in any 2 of
Art and Design -Fine Art
History
Religious Studies

Definitely doable, but definitely means I am likely to run around in hysterics with multiple nervous breakdowns in the limbo time between exams and results. Scheisse!

Bloody excited, though, because this means I have two viable places - a proper and a back-up. Thank sweet Mary Jesus and Joseph (and their donkey).

Also, first impression time being a Scout Leader Proper in the village troop tonight. A little bit anxious, but I'm sure it will be fine, providing I don't start swearing among the little kiddies. :D

I have decided to force a massive confidence boost from now through my 18th year on Earth, by forcing myself into situations I would usually crap myself at, and dealing with it.

That is all,

Tata,

Rachel

Drowning in Paper (The Maws of Doom)

Half term, though good as far as doing exciting things and resting goes, has left me in a bit of a pickle.

I have a 3 A1 board deadline in three days, which I have almost absolutely no work for, I have coursework preparation coming out of my ears, am in the middle of reading three books which I would like to get through before my birthday when a new year's reading-list starts and, of course, my creative writing portfolio, which is an extract of 25PP.

Aforementioned portfolio is turning into a project worthy of a capital letter. It is supposed to be a sixteen page Portfolio of creative writing, with a two page commentary, and it is meant to be not shit.

Presently, my Portfolio is THIRTY-TWO pages long, lacks any form of commentary, and is very, very rough. It needs the largest amount of slicing and chopping and rearranging known to man. These pages are size 10 font.

Typically, the time when I really ought to be focusing on art deadlines, I haven't a painting bone in my body and just want to hack away at the giant redwood that is my Portfolio. So, I am sitting on my bed with a page full of 'TO-DO' list, absurd, loose pages of continuous prose and a cup of cold tea.

Let the carnage begin - I'll see you on the other side, providing I don't die in a bloodied mass of paper cuts and misfired staples, or have my pen run out half-way. xxx