He said I could call anytime
I was starting to fall for him
he can not reciprocate
it would get messy
I'd get hurt
I ran
Saturday, 28 August 2010
Sunday, 8 August 2010
Thank You.
It's been a tough year. In our last week at Bath Spa we were given a PowerPoint presentation on how many companies were shedding staff because of the recession. Pages of text crammed together. The text just company name after company name.
They told us the stigma attached to signing on no longer existed. Encouraged us to do it. Or leave the country.
I moved home. I volunteered for Oxjam for three months, which I'd recommend to anyone for meeting lovely people and getting experience while raising money for a good cause. I went to Copenhagen for the Climate Summit. I wrote 20,000 words or so of my novel. I put months of effort into applying for an internship I didn't get. I volunteered again for a community based project.
And then I started to get scared. To grow increasingly morose. My family were beginning to believe I'd become a loser. Many of my school friends were in the same boat. We sat in pubs in the rain (it may not have been raining but it adds effect) with furrowed brows, scraping the barrel for mutual support.
Then I applied for a dream job. Combining everything I love. Travel, writing, social media, video and photography. I went to an interview and gave everything I had.
And I got the job.
So I'd like to say thank you.
Thank you to my friends and family for helping me to keep my chin up. Thank you to the many kind people on twitter who have given me support over this year. To Ed. To the two train bloggers Jools and David. Thank you to my tutor Joe, travel writer extraordinaire. Thank you to my friends at Waterstone's past and present. To my old housemates. To my mother, with her boundless love and patience, in spite of being one of the most impatient people I know. To my sisters and brother, not least for helping me make videos. My father. To Kate, whose sofa has been a constant comfort and who has allowed me to become a secondary housemate. To my school friends (Lara, Roxy, Ju, thanks for the cameos). To my grandad, who commented on my application even though he doesn't know what social media is. Who told me I was the best.
To those of you who joined my Facebook groups: Hannah, Tom H, Holly T, Holly W, Leslie, Steve, Ellie, Carly, Katie M, Loralei, Jenny, Gina, Kyam, Laura J, Diego, Sam W, Ruby, Katie P, Tanja, Kimberley, Adam, Amy, Emily G, Emily M, Ella C, Cherry, Annie M, Fran, Becky, Steph, Maria, Mel, Jessi, Rachel B, Shaun, Ed, Greg, Antonia, Nathan, Kwojo, Alice C, Richard, Jalon, Lucy, Olivia, Katherine, Dave, Thea C, Henry, Charlene, Lara, Justin, Tom A, Lu (my wonderful mother), Ben, Ella P, Nieves, Elena, Thom, Daniel, Fikir, Roxanne, Jools, Sian, Kate, Natassia, Lee, Owen, Joe, Fred, James, Annie McG.
To everyone.
Thank you.
They told us the stigma attached to signing on no longer existed. Encouraged us to do it. Or leave the country.
I moved home. I volunteered for Oxjam for three months, which I'd recommend to anyone for meeting lovely people and getting experience while raising money for a good cause. I went to Copenhagen for the Climate Summit. I wrote 20,000 words or so of my novel. I put months of effort into applying for an internship I didn't get. I volunteered again for a community based project.
And then I started to get scared. To grow increasingly morose. My family were beginning to believe I'd become a loser. Many of my school friends were in the same boat. We sat in pubs in the rain (it may not have been raining but it adds effect) with furrowed brows, scraping the barrel for mutual support.
Then I applied for a dream job. Combining everything I love. Travel, writing, social media, video and photography. I went to an interview and gave everything I had.
And I got the job.
So I'd like to say thank you.
Thank you to my friends and family for helping me to keep my chin up. Thank you to the many kind people on twitter who have given me support over this year. To Ed. To the two train bloggers Jools and David. Thank you to my tutor Joe, travel writer extraordinaire. Thank you to my friends at Waterstone's past and present. To my old housemates. To my mother, with her boundless love and patience, in spite of being one of the most impatient people I know. To my sisters and brother, not least for helping me make videos. My father. To Kate, whose sofa has been a constant comfort and who has allowed me to become a secondary housemate. To my school friends (Lara, Roxy, Ju, thanks for the cameos). To my grandad, who commented on my application even though he doesn't know what social media is. Who told me I was the best.
To those of you who joined my Facebook groups: Hannah, Tom H, Holly T, Holly W, Leslie, Steve, Ellie, Carly, Katie M, Loralei, Jenny, Gina, Kyam, Laura J, Diego, Sam W, Ruby, Katie P, Tanja, Kimberley, Adam, Amy, Emily G, Emily M, Ella C, Cherry, Annie M, Fran, Becky, Steph, Maria, Mel, Jessi, Rachel B, Shaun, Ed, Greg, Antonia, Nathan, Kwojo, Alice C, Richard, Jalon, Lucy, Olivia, Katherine, Dave, Thea C, Henry, Charlene, Lara, Justin, Tom A, Lu (my wonderful mother), Ben, Ella P, Nieves, Elena, Thom, Daniel, Fikir, Roxanne, Jools, Sian, Kate, Natassia, Lee, Owen, Joe, Fred, James, Annie McG.
To everyone.
Thank you.
Don't Give Up.
I'm thinking about the representation of women in the media, again. There are several reasons. Firstly everyone who still has a television will probably have seen the Sure ad. It features Alexandra Burke, the winner of X-factor a couple of years ago. At the beginning of the advert I think she looks quite beautiful. Then they fire make-up all over her face and stick her on a stage and she looks far less beautiful. And I guess as their target audience I'm supposed to aspire to the latter Burke.
I went to a bar in Bath last night and saw swathes of women walking around in strapless dresses which only just skimmed the underneath of their buttocks. Nearly all of them were wearing impossibly high heels. I wondered at what point women collectively decided they needed to look like this. Would men cease to want to sleep with them if they wore something slightly more flattering? Of course not.
I think a sketch on That Mitchell and Webb Look - Women Sort Yourselves Out
highlights these issues pointedly.
And it's the way women talk about each other as well. In Mean Girls there's a brilliant scene where Tina Fey says to an audience of high school girls: 'you all have got to stop calling each other sluts and whores. It just makes it OK for guys to call you sluts and whores.'
How many times have you heard Camilla Parker Bowles referred to as a horse? And what does Charles get? Big ears... If someone told me I had a big nose I'd say 'Yes?' because I do have a quite a prominent nose. But call me equine-features and you're insulting me as a person.
How many unattractive male actors and comedians can you name? And female?
Feminism has achieved a lot - but it's painful to hear people still taking the man-hating whinging woman perspective as its face. Feminism in the original sense is about striving for equality while celebrating differences. I'm still waiting for all women to be celebrated by all women and men for who they are, not what they look like.
I went to a bar in Bath last night and saw swathes of women walking around in strapless dresses which only just skimmed the underneath of their buttocks. Nearly all of them were wearing impossibly high heels. I wondered at what point women collectively decided they needed to look like this. Would men cease to want to sleep with them if they wore something slightly more flattering? Of course not.
I think a sketch on That Mitchell and Webb Look - Women Sort Yourselves Out
highlights these issues pointedly.
And it's the way women talk about each other as well. In Mean Girls there's a brilliant scene where Tina Fey says to an audience of high school girls: 'you all have got to stop calling each other sluts and whores. It just makes it OK for guys to call you sluts and whores.'
How many times have you heard Camilla Parker Bowles referred to as a horse? And what does Charles get? Big ears... If someone told me I had a big nose I'd say 'Yes?' because I do have a quite a prominent nose. But call me equine-features and you're insulting me as a person.
How many unattractive male actors and comedians can you name? And female?
Feminism has achieved a lot - but it's painful to hear people still taking the man-hating whinging woman perspective as its face. Feminism in the original sense is about striving for equality while celebrating differences. I'm still waiting for all women to be celebrated by all women and men for who they are, not what they look like.
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