Northanger Abbey Life

Okay, so, I haven't blogged for a million years, but here is one, at last, if only a very brief one (I feel that this will be brief, although, perhaps once I get going it will, in fact, be rather long!)

I never thought my third year would involve quite this much work! I think I'm doing double the work of last year, and I'm only doing 2 modules a term, rather than 3. Crazy! I'm enjoying them so much though; we're reading some fantastic books. Maria Edgeworth's 'Belinda' is awesome, and we're reading some fantastic Gothic fiction, also, including the books that Catherine Morland reads in Northanger Abbey.

I have realised that I am most definitely a Catherine myself (and no, that's not actually my proper name, before you ask). She just wanders around this abbey and imposes drama and romance upon it. I like to think that I'm not quite as bad as she is... but I'm not sure. I fall for people way too easily. While we're on the subject of confessions, here's something I discovered yesterday: I realise that when I exit an Internet page, I scroll to the top of the page before I click the X. Isn't that strange? Maybe.

So, Taylor Swift's new album is out! I bought it at the very first opportunity, of course. It's called Speak Now, and it's amazing. I have a new favourite song in the world, 'Sparks Fly'. I played it to my friend on the bus yesterday and he complained that it's too happy. But it's not, really. My fave lyrics are "I could wait patiently, but I really wish you would drop everything now, meet me in the pouring rain; kiss me on the sidewalk, take away the pain." I guess I can identify with that... she knows it's sensible to wait, to be patient, but she really wishes someone would just take a risk on her and sweep her off her feet. Sigh.

However, that said, I am very aware that God is by far the number one thing in my life; or he certainly should be. We had our Christian Union weekend away last weekend, which involved lots of teaching, loads of Scrabble, and not very much sleep! In fact, one night I abandoned watching Beauty and the Beast (possibly my favourite film ever... certainly my favourite Disney film) after the first song, because I needed sleep that badly! Anyway, I was really challenged that we can easily make an idol of something when we take a good thing and make it an ultimate thing. I've been reading a fantastic book, too, called 'When I don't desire God' by John Piper, who writes amazing Christian books. If you don't know Jesus, seriously, get to know him. Sounds cliché, yes, but with him the rest of the world just fades into insignificance. I want to fall even more desperately in love with him.

So, what else has been occurring? I've been out to dinner a few times with various groups of friends. Been for cocktails too, and dressed up all pretty. We had our CU cocktail party, which is always great fun, mostly for the fact that you get to get dressed up--one of my favourite things :)

Tomorrow night I'm running a 'Light Party' at my church with some of my friends, for all of the kids, kind of an alternative to Halloween, celebrating all the light things in the world rather than the darkness. I'm excited about that; we have to dress up in our brightest, sparkliest clothes... sounds like a fabulous opportunity for glittery nail varnish! :D

In summary: loads of busy-ness, lots of fun, tons of food, plenty of cocktails, and God's grace in ABUNDANCE!

Tea

I really like tea, and as an attempt to procrastinate work for a considerable amount of time, I've decided that I shall dedicate a blog to tea. Sophie, one of my housemates, is sitting next to me editing her novel. I'm sitting on the same sofa, with my new novel (all six pages of it...) open on my laptop and failing to write. And failing to work on my assignment that's due in at the end of next week. And failing to do any reading. Although, that said, the books that are most urgent for me to read haven't arrived yet because I tried to buy them on Amazon with a debit card that had expired... so mega fail, really.

I'm just thinking through my typing fingers, really, which I guess is what I always do when I blog, but I did decide that this should be about tea, because it's so often overlooked. I don't think anybody reads this blog anyway, so it probably doesn't matter... however, I did send the link of it to my Mum today when we were talking on Skype. She put it in her favourites, and I felt special that I was my Mum's favourite... as I'm an only child, this probably isn't much of a revelation.

OK, some things about tea:

According to Wikipedia, tea originated in China in around the 10th century BC. So, hooray for China! I commend you greatly.

Tea, apparently, contains more caffeine than coffee, although I know that this is quite a controversial statement. I've also heard that although it does contain more caffeine, it doesn't get absorbed into our bloodstream, although I would beg to differ, because I know how hard I find it to get to sleep if I drink tea after 9pm... but maybe I'm ultra sensitive.

My favourite type of tea I think is traditional English tea, as I am a traditional English lady. However, I guess it's not English, but, in fact, Chinese... even Yorkshire tea? Surely that's from Yorkshire? I'll look into it... to the Internet! OK, Yorkshiretea.com says that their tea comes from Assam, in Africa, and from Sri Lanka... so it's not Yorkshire tea at all, but is actually Sri Lankan tea... how do they get away with THAT one? Nonetheless, that is the best kind of tea.

That said, when I am in my fruitier, or more exotic moods, I like to branch out somewhat. I'm quite a fan of Roobois and vanilla Roobois especially, after reading the Number One Ladies' Detective Agency series of books, by Alexander McCall Smith. (If you haven't read them, check them out, they're really lovely, light reads). I'm also quite a fan of chai and vanilla chai. I'm sensing a theme her... perhaps there should be a vanilla Yorkshire tea, and then I would feel very happy. Maybe I should contact them about this. Maybe I could get them to sponsor my blog?

When I'm revising for exams or am stressing about anything else, I'm also a humongous fan of camomile tea. I discovered this during the first year of my A-levels, and it's amazing how calm it does make you. That said... a normal cup of tea makes me feel very much calmer in any situation. I'm very British in that if anybody is distressed, my immediate reaction is to offer them a cup of tea. Also as soon as anybody steps into my house I offer them a cup of tea.

I love spontaneous cups of tea. When you bump into a friend when you don't expect to and have a cup of tea together, or when somebody happens to pop by and tea drinking occurs. I believe that wonderful things can happen through tea drinking. Secrets are told more easily and problems are solved or discussed much more smoothly when a cup of tea is involved. Tea brings people together.

Tea paraphernalia is beautiful, too. I just Googled 'teacup' to prove this point, and I found this, which I absolutely love: http://www.countryliving.com/cm/countryliving/images/teacup-stack-SHOP0506-de.jpg (it's not anything to do with me, I just think it's pretty.) I really want to own a beautiful, matching tea set, but I'll wait until I move out of student accommodation, I think.

One of my favourite feelings in the world is when you've had a long day and you finally get to sit on the sofa and you can cup a warm cup of tea in your hands and breathe slowly. Sigh... that, I'm pretty sure, is a snapshot of heaven here on earth.

Sophie, aforementioned housemate, just called through to me, "Why are there sausages on the table?" and I thought I would share it with you, kind reader of my blog, so that you might have a glimpse of what life in my house is like. That more or less sums it up. On a similar note, I was Skyping my Mum today, which I believe I already mentioned. She went through to the kitchen and I heard her exclaim, "oo! I found parsnips in the oven!" Yes, my mother had, in fact, discovered some peeled, chopped, cooked parsnips in her oven.

So, now that I have ad-libbed for far too long about how wonderful tea is, I think I shall go and make a cup. And maybe cook the sausages that are on the table. Thank you for bearing with me, if you did. And if you didn't, well, then you won't be reading this

Daydreaming

I just managed to write 1,000 words of my new novel in the last half hour, so I'm feeling pretty accomplished. Of course, immersing yourself in a world that doesn't exist tends to have adverse effects on one's relationship with reality... and mine's always been dodgy anyway. What I'm getting at, I suppose, is that I'm feeling smooshy and daydreamy.

I've discovered that Yurima goes very well with this novel... or at least with the first chapter of it, anyway. And listening to his music has always made me inclined to daydream anyway. I'm now watching the video for Taylor Swift's new song, Mine, I'm adding the link just because I like it so much. It's not my favourite song of hers, or my favourite of her music videos, but it kind of goes with my mood, somehow. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPBwXKgDTdE&ob=av2e I'm a geek, I know. Is it possible to be a princess and a geek at the same time? I hope so.

I'm trying to chill a little before Bright Sparks this evening. This is the 5-11s group at my church that I help out with. It's so much fun, but exhausting! This is the first one since the summer holidays, so I'm excited to see what God has been doing in these kids' lives since Holiday Club... and if they can still remember the memory verse... I can! I think... "Nothing is as wonderful as knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. I have given up everything else and count it all as rubbish. All I want is Christ!" Philippians 3:8. Yes, I can remember it, then. And it's holding me in good stead too. What a great verse to constantly remind myself of! Whenever I get stressed out or sad or lonely or... dare I say it... obsessing over my hair, I have to remind myself that NOTHING is as wonderful as knowing Jesus! Hooray! :) Hmm... this is more of a diary than a blog.

Er... steering back into the realms of blog-ness... so, started lectures again. I'm really enjoying everything so far, and love getting back into studying. I think I'd been away from it too long: over the summer, I was re-reading some of the Twilight books, and in my head I was planning essays on them! How super-geeky! One of my seminar leaders was going on about Twilight, actually, and saying how we shouldn't completely dismiss Stephenie Meyer as rubbish because, although her writing is pretty atrocious, she has somehow managed to single handedly create a Gothic revival in literature, and spawn a whole new breed of vampires... albeit, sparkly ones.

I do like sparkly things, though. I might use some sparkly nail varnish... that would be nice. So... daydreamy mood is running out as I'm thinking about how hungry I am. So I guess this is a short blog, and a pretty stupid one, I'm not sure it really has a point. But does something need to have a point?

The Noisy Blog

I'm eating my breakfast, and my housemates are either at work, sleeping or travelling, so I thought it was high time I wrote a new blog to keep me entertained, whilst trying not to get porridge on my laptop. (Porridge with chocolate spread mixed in, if you're wondering, I usually add raisins too, but I forgot this morning... I don't know why.)

I thought I would make a list of my favourite sounds. I don't know why that, either. It might be useful for my writing one day, but otherwise it's just quite nice to dwell on things that I like. So hooray :)

1. The ping of the microwave, because it means that food is ready

2. The noise my dog makes when he's chasing something in his dream, it makes me laugh

3. The sound of my fingers tapping quickly at my keyboard; it means that I'm either doing some really good writing, doing a great essay or, most likely, writing something completely unimportant but totally exciting on Facebook.

4. The sound of someone knocking on the door when you don't expect it; it either means the postman has a parcel for one of us (hopefully food or films) or you have a surprise visitor. I love this.

5. The sound of rain on the roof of the conservatory at my parents' house. It's just amazing. Especially if I'm snuggled up on the sofa in there with a blanket and a book.

6. The sound of slamming shut a really good book. I just like it.

7. My alarm when it goes off on a day when something really exciting is happening.

8. The noise it makes when you push the lid onto the box of a board game too quickly.

9. The slap of flip flops on the pavement in summer.

10. The noise it makes when you pull a suction pad off of tile... I think that has to be the best noise ever. I'm 21 and I still haven't gotten over how fantastic it is.

Also, note to self: If you run out of milk, go to the shop and buy some more. Porridge made with water is not very nice.

Party!

So, suddenly, after what felt like (and for my Mum actually was) months of preparation, my birthday party is over. I had an amazing evening (well, weekend, actually!) and I feel totally overwhelmed by the love people have shown me. I suppose I will tackle this somewhat chronologically for fear of a snowball of information and emotion.

Beccy was the first to arrive at my house, in true party-loving fashion, more than 24 hours before the party started! I'm going to miss that fabulous lady, as she has now officially moved out of number thirty-seven, and Norwich altogether. We had a catch up, ate too many fajitas, and went to the cinema. We saw Scott Pilgrim vs the World. If you haven't seen it, then do! It was amazingly weird... or maybe weirdly amazing... or maybe both. I can't stop quoting, "I said lesbians, didn't I..." and "You were bi-curious? Well I'm bi-furious!" these are the only two same-sex-attraction references in the film, I don't know why these are the things I remembered most!

Saturday during the day was a whirl of organza and cupcake icing. I want to say a massive thanks to Matthew, who was amazing at decorating everything in sight! Then came the time to go to the hairdressers' and they curled, and sprayed my hair until I looked like a princess, but felt like a cheese grater. Somehow I managed it that most of my friends would arrive at the station during the period I was being primped, so friends and family did relays to train station to pick them all up, while I sat still and painted my nails and such!

After loads of jacket potatoes and chilli and even more makeup, we managed to get to the party venue without TOO many fights for mirrors. And from there the night went in a flash--a sparkly, disco-ball flash. Tons of balloons, millions of cupcakes, a great band and sooo many friends and family made it a truly amazing evening.

I wore some astounding shoes from Kurt Geiger, which are the nicest shoes I've ever worn. Of course, they are one of the most painful pairs also, and combined with the loads of dancing we did, I was in a considerable amount of agony by the time we got into the house, but I didn't give in. I danced with old friends, new friends, and friends that will always be my friends. Those I know so well I think they're a part of me, and those who I'm just starting to get to know.

Sadly, no knight in shining armour on a white horse came to sweep me off my feet, but I felt like a princess in every other way, and every single lady there looked like one too! I reiterate my astonishment at the effort everybody put into everything, from the food and decorations, to dressing up the part--if any of you do read this, then thank you!

Preparations and Transitions

At present I am in the midst of preparations for my birthday party, which is on Saturday... in two days' time. I think I'm in the calm before the storm... although hopefully it will be a fun storm! It's my 21st birthday on the 13th, but I'm having my party on the 4th so that it's not crazy immediately before we all go back to uni.

OK, this is a really boring blog. I felt the need to do so though, perhaps as a way to purge, or maybe just to kill some time.

I've been tidying out my room in order to make room for as many camp beds as possible and I came across a few things that I found interesting, and wasted some time with. First of all I came across the novel that I wrote between the ages of 12-14. I do feel proud of it, because it is a full-length young adult novel, printed out and arranged nicely in a folder, complete with title page and illustrations of characters. It's called 'Forbidden', about a 17-year-old girl vampire, who falls in love with a human boy, despite their love being forbidden. I finished writing this in 2004, so I hold Stephanie Meyer a little in contempt for 'stealing' my idea.

However, I decided to read it, thinking it would be an enjoyable few hours of reminiscing. I couldn't get past the fourth page. This is the phrase that I found so painful that I had to stop reading, "I look into your eyes and I feel like time is frozen and I can let this moment last forever; only it won't last forever, can't lost forever, nothing can last forever, except my undying love for you!" What makes this worse is that the grammar is almost as painful as the cringeworthy sentiment. And yet, it does show how much my writing has improved in the last six years.

I also came across my leavers' book, from when I left sixth form at the age of 18. I went to that school for five years, and most of the comments are people saying 'I didn't really know you,' or words to that effect. Sometimes these were from people I thought I knew quite well. Some of the people didn't actually seem to know who I was. It's all very Mean Girls. Some of the nicest things in there were written by my English teachers, which I think says a lot! One of them even gave me her home phone number! They all seemed to know that I was soon to have a book published, though, and everyone wrote how successful I would be as a writer... so we'll see!

My first boyfriend, Charlie, wrote in it that in ten years he would want my autograph, as I'd be rich and famous... I recently learned that he's actually in the process of filming a, well, a film, like an actual cinema film, and that he has another lined up soon. So, actually, I think he could well be very famous very soon... maybe I can exchange autographs with him? I bet I know which would be worth more money! Maybe I could sell the story of our first kiss to some trashy magazine, though, and pay the rent that I can't pay with a writer's living.

It's strange reading through that book and hearing everyone's wishes for a good time at uni. They all told me to "have fun at uni!" and I disregarded that, pretty sure that it would be three years of grinning and bearing it. I was soooo in love (phrase of the era) with my boyfriend of 2 years, Matt, and I couldn't bear to leave him. I almost didn't go, in fact. Those fears kind of come through when I think about my reactions to everyone's good wishes. How odd, when I compare that to how I feel now.

I'm just about to step into my third, and final, year at uni. And I can't bare to leave! Matt and I broke up before I even went to uni, we didn't even last it through the summer. At the time it felt like the worst thing in the world, and now I see that it was probably the best. I've made so many amazing friends at uni, more than I could possibly have even hoped for, and I know that when I come to leave, none of them will write "I didn't really know you".

So it's been a week of transitions really, trying to transition into thinking of myself as a 21-year-old, i.e. someone who is DEFINITELY an adult (even if a somewhat reluctant one), of trying to get my head around what on earth I'm going to do when I finish uni, how I've changed and (hopefully) improved as a writer, and remembering the strange transition from school to university.

For old time's sake, I'm adding a photo of my leavers' ball from sixth form, just over two years ago.

Mary Poppins, Harry Potter and Jesus

When I scanned through the last post, my eyes focused on the line "play games, sing songs and do crafts," which made me think of Mary Poppins. I guess I've been a lot like Mary Poppins this week, in fact, with my humungous handbag filled with: a plastic sword that blows bubbles, a pink wig, and a cardboard parrot template, to name just a few. The week went so quickly, and I've learned so so much, and I think the kids have too!

It's really struck me (once again) that God always exceeds expectations (which makes me think of the grades that the Harry Potter characters get in their OWLs--geek alert!). But not only does he exceed expectations, but he exceeds them in ways that you wouldn't expect. I guess I'd assumed that God would exceed our expectations by bringing loads of kids along, but in fact (though the numbers were good), he exceeded them in the response that we got from the kids to our teaching, and to our bad jokes!

And God ALWAYS exceeds my expectations in terms of how well he provides for us; even down to the tiniest of details he's there. Whenever you're most flagging (cue semaphore jokes), that's when God refuels you with a load of fresh energy, and whenever you're feeling the most tired and brain-dead, that's when you'll have a really good conversation with a child about Jesus. I guess God does it to remind you that you're not working on your own strength, but on him. I suppose we're all inclined to forget this a lot, but it is when we feel that we can do things on our own that we stop doing them well.

This is not disheartening, in fact it is a great freedom. If we had to rely on our own strength we would be fallible, we would falter, and we would fail (I love alliteration!). But because we know that we cannot do a single thing on our own, we rely more fully on God. I certainly don't rely on God as much as I should or would like to, but it's a start. God has infinite resources of strength, which is freely available for us to tap into when we set aside our self-sufficiency.

I'm reminded, perhaps for the millionth time, of some teaching we had at our new leaders' training weekend, nearly 18 months ago when I first started a year on the committee for the Christian Union at my uni. We had a bunch of talks on 2 Corinthians, and one was particularly inspiring to all of us. 2 Corinthians 4:7 says, "But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us." The treasure referred to is knowledge of Jesus and salvation, which is the greatest thing we could have (see Philippians 3:8, and my previous blog post!), and it is in clay jars (us). Clay jars are fragile and show cracks, but because of this the light of God inside them shines all the more brightly because we can see that the glory is from the treasure, and not from the jars.

Aside from all this, I genuinely had a great week. The awful punchlines and cheesy songs will haunt me for some time, yes, but the friendships that grew and the huge amount that I learned (and hopefully that the kids learned) will last much longer. Although if I hear another fish-based joke, I think I might cry!