Okay free period now, and I am putting off maths assignment so - here you go, update on last night.

 

Dance show to music of Steve Reich.  "Triple Bill!" they inform us.

 

The first third was ABSOLUTELY DIRE.  Really awful.  The music was headachey and monotonous, the two dancers were just going round and round in circles waving their arms (although they made a funny "schwup" noise when they turned quickly and stopped)... first interval and I think Pip summed it up with "KILL ME NOW."

 

The second third was a complete contrast.  Ten dancers, interesting.  Not so bad music.  People singing, although it could have been "we hate you get out of the theatre" for all I know, it was completely unintelligible.  But I enjoyed it, and would love to dance as part of a group like that.  You know I would, and you know that my extraordinary hand-eye means I never will.  Hurrah.

 

Third part, was interesting, especially with the little bloke sat at the front of the stage talking to someone who wasn't there.  "Hello," he said.  "Hello, you alright?" we called back.  As you do.  "I'm fine," he said.  There was a silence, where we thought he was actually talking to us."

 

"I see what you mean," he said.  And then we knew he'd cracked.

 

Remind me that Steve Reich music is not my thing.  Too monotonous.  Oh, and we're studying his stuff in February.  Three cheers.

 

My thighs are stiff and horrible from sitting still too long so that I can hardly walk without wincing in pain.  It's really horrible.

 

Got home about 1am, absolutely exhausted.  Twenty minutes' sleep on the train, so I was a bit woosey.  Finally got to sleep about an hour later.

 

Woke up half past six as usual.

 

Oh and you know what too?  Just because they thought, as a department, they hadn't tortured us enough?  I have a Performance Studies essay to write.  Which means I will be spending this weekend reading books by directors with unpronouncable names in an effort to prove that I've actually done my homework properly.  And what's this essay entitled?  "What do you understand by the Language of Performing Arts?"  Well, I'll tell you what I understand for nothing, with no quotations from Peter Brook or Augusto Boal.  The Language of Performing Arts, as it is so pretentiously put, DOES NOT EXIST.  What happens is you get up on stage, you act, and then you get off the stage.  Job done.  It's really no more difficult than that, as long as you do it reasonably well.  So I have to write approximately four pages, plus quotations and the odd diagram if I'm feeling more visual, on a subject that is really no more than UTTER BOLLOCKS.

 

C, H, this afternoon, you're going to have to do the politics and keeping conversation going yourself.  I can't even bloody think straight.

I've just been reading a book by one of my all-time favourite writers, and I thought I'd copy out the preface for you.  You might find it interesting.  And to make it even more interesting, I'll let you guess who the writer is and what the book is (once you have one, the other should be obvious, either that or you are an uncultured slob. Haha.)  You might be able to spot the connections between the subject of the preface, and the book and its author.  Just a hint, you know?  And an obscure one too.  How very generous.  Oh, and also the author wrote the preface too.  Just to make it very very simple (cue everbody running to Google to look it up - you cheat)

 

PREFACE

 

The artist is the creator of beautiful things.
To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim.
The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.
The highest, as the lowest, form of criticism is an autobiography.
Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming.  This is a fault.
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated.  For these there is hope.
They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty.
There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book.  Books are well written, or badly written.  That is all.
The nineteenth century dislike of Realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
The nineteenth century dislike of Romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass.
The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium.  No artist desires to prove anything.  Even things that are true can be proved.
No artist has ethical sympathies.  An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style.
No artist is ever morbid.  The artist can express everything.
Thought and language are to the artist instruments of art.
Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for art.
From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician.  From the point of view of feeling, the actor’s craft is the type.
All art is at once surface and symbol.
Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.
Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.
It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.
Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.
When critics disagree the artist is in accord with himself.
We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it.  The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.
All art is quite useless.

 

CHAPTER 1

 

The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open window the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.

 

(NB: Don't be put off, if you'd asked me, I wouldn't have said it started with that either.  I just liked it, as first lines go.)

Went out with Mum.  Lots of talking.  Got lectured.

Saw "The Queen".  Adapted my values.

Babysat.  Made £45 over 2 nights.  Not bad.

Decided who to be this week.

Went up a cup size.  This does not happen often.  Vg.

 

Disorder | Rating
Paranoid: Moderate
Schizoid: Low
Schizotypal: Moderate
Antisocial: Low
Borderline: Low
Histrionic: Low
Narcissistic: Moderate
Avoidant: High
Dependent: Low
Obsessive-Compulsive: High

URL of the test: http://www.4degreez.com/misc/personality_disorder_test.mv
URL for more info: http://www.4degreez.com/disorder/index.html

 

You know when I write a list of stuff that I'm thinking, that people have said or whatever?  Just stuff that's going round in my head?  Well here's last night's effort:

 

96% of women have, at one time in their life, faked an orgasm.
I know I keep on nagging you but…
I just feel like no-one listens to me.
If you’ve never self-harmed or been depressed, you don’t know what it’s like.
I hate her.
She’s got the hump with me and the rest of the world.
So who’s this guy then?
She would have dumped me if…
I just want someone to hug.
I think she hates me.
That’ll look good on your record, first test, 130%.
20% of women have had a homosexual encounter.
Lizzie Borden took an axe, and gave her father forty whacks.
Sometimes, I find myself translating words in my head so people will understand me.
You didn’t come to see me!
I haven’t seen you in ages!
Do you still hate him?
I don’t know, it’s just the way you act sometimes.
Are you free Friday?
I don’t know, I still really like him.
She did WHAT?!
It’s fine, but I have so much more to do.
I’ll beat them all, even if I don’t turn up to lessons.
You need to keep talking.  Keep talking.
He’s coming for me…
I need you, I need you so SO much.
You can’t take something like that lightly.
He knows I’m going out.  You’ll have to settle him, I’m afraid.
When she saw what she had done, she gave her mother forty-one.
My name is not as simple to define as perhaps it should be.
I got in!  I GOT IN!
We’re going to see the queen.
There are two people in this world I can’t hold a candle to.  So I’ve given up trying.
This country is in safe hands then.
It’s guns, only subtler.
OH GOD HE’S COMING FOR ME
Shh… go to sleep…

I've written several entries to be posted over the last few days, but not sent any of them.

 

I've not written in my diary for over a week, which is awful, because I've grown and it hasn't, and it's all because I just haven't had time.

 

I sympathise with you, you don't know quite how much I do.

 

It's all vey well, you, being so couply and lovely, I don't begrudge you it at all, I think it's wonderful and good for you but it does highlight what I really don't like to think about and that's that I am alone.  Not in the friend sense.  In the soulmate sense.  Which makes me all the more wish that I'd written in my diary more this week.  I'll go upstairs in a moment and write it, I miss it so much but I've just been so tired... and now my thoughts and the thoughts I've recorded are worlds apart.  A lot can happen in a week.  A lot has happened.

 

I can't be the only one who feels like there must be something wrong with them because they're on their own.  There's something missing.  For god's sake, I know I'm fine, I know there's nothing wrong with me, but it's one against a million, it can't be everybody else there's something wrong with, can it?  I don't know.  I just know that whoever's fault it is... something's not right.

 

Somebody's very perceptive, someone I've been talking to a reasonable amount, and who seems to know where I'm coming from.  I think he knows he's perceptive and I'd like to take this oppertunity to thank him wholeheartedly for describing and explaining and generally stopping me from feeling alone.  You're a star.  I know you don't believe in God, but He's smiling on me right now because I have help, and I know He'll smile on you for just being there and listening.

 

God bless anyone who's ever listened instead of talking, anyone who's held their head up high, put their shoulders back and felt strong and, importantly, ALIVE.  God bless people who don't show it because I don't seem to have that ability.  I thought I had but it appears not.  It's this week, I swear.  I'll get back to being normal soon.

 

As I end up telling myself so very often: snapoutofit.

Fifteen hours until I am, rather grandly, in higher education.

 

English Language, Maths, Economics, Performance Studies, Critical Thinking.  CRITICAL THINKING?  I mean, pretentious is fun, yeah, I can do pretentious, but CRITICAL THINKING?!  What's that, like, "Yeah, I don't think I like that"?  It just reminds me of a course Mum was looking at about problem solving a few days ago while I was laminating in the office.  It was, bluntly, PISS EASY.  A FIVE YEAR OLD could have mastered it with no problem.  And I'm not joking.  I've been taking the piss out of Mum ever since - she insists it was a sample, but I'm certain she is now officially a LearnDirect Problem Solver!!  My point being, WHY am I taking Critical Thinking?

 

I'm freaking out about this.  Give me a minute or two and I'll be fine.  I always do this with new things.

 

Okay, ready now.  Ready now.  Let's go.

 

Come on how long have I been impatient for?  Fifteen hours.  Hurry uuuuuup...

Several people have in the past told me that this is condescending, but I thought we ought to get a few things straight.

 

SECRET [see-krit]

–adjective

–noun

I draw attention now to meaning number twelve, particularly.  Does that seem fair?

 

It's not right for me to get annoyed about this, I realised at about one o'clock this morning.  It was my own fault, I am the one who betrayed C's confidence first, it is only right that it should catch up on me.  But that does not mean I am not reeling a bit here.  Plus, it's VERY harsh on him, and it is my fault.  I feel such an idiot.

 

I suppose I shouldn't be convinced that people change, I mean, they do, obviously, but only apparently to an extent.  I've misjudged the extent.

 

We can only learn from our mistakes, and exercise damage control.  The former, I am determined to do - more effectively than last time.  The latter... is it lucky or not that I am removed from all this?  C isn't.  All I can say is: he had bloody better not get too hurt by this or I swear to you now HEADS WILL ROLL.  I am not joking.  I do not joke about this kind of thing.  Do I make myself perfectly clear?

 

I forgive you on behalf of myself, but not yet on behalf of C.  It ain't over til the fat lady sings.

Okay, sorry about last night's entry, I shouldn't have done it.  Don't read it.  If you read it, that will be attention seeking and I don't want that because it's pathetic.

 

Anyway, I'm sane again now.   Hair isn't playing up either, so it's all good.  I'm writing up some of my old diaries from two years ago.  I tried a while ago to, but I gave up.  I don't know how I feel about people reading it, but there we go.  Maybe I'll tell you the password for it, it depends if you're interested.

 

I'm sorry, it was so so funny yesterday, driving past KES and seeing a few people I know in business dress - Team Dandy looking SMART, for goodness's sake!  And S... M, L, A - that was VERY funny.  I feel a little cruel, but it was a bit of a surprise.  You all look so much older.  Really.  And, like J said, we're just kids at college (or we will be next week hrrmph), you look like adults now, and that is SCARY.  But, frankly, quite amusing.

 

Can't think of much more to add right now, don't know why I bothered writing that anyway but there we go.  What's the point of a blog anyway?  I wish you lot had them.  It's interesting when you get snapshots into other people's minds like blogs, it's what they consider important at time of writing.  So enlightening.  Take the hint, yeah?

 

Oh, and K, it's AMAZING to talk to you again, missed it!!  Just so ABSURD... mua ha ha Brocolli Florets returns...

Well, I've decided I'm not writing enough in here so I'm going to update now with exactly what I'm feeling.

 

Yup, it's probably going to be a long one.  If you're not interested, I'd give up about now if I were you.

 

First and foremost, I am impatient.  VERY impatient.  Put it this way: English Language, Maths, Economics, Performance Studies, Critical Thinking.  This time next week I will be doing the things I love.  This time... next week.  I've not done proper knuckle-down essay work since... oh, god, since May at least.  So that's three months, more or less.  Three months of rest and relaxation, and BRAIN ROT.  But in a week's time, that'll be different.  I can get on with things.  But I have- to wait- another- week.  Do you KNOW how infuriating it is - S has gone back before me.  H has, and J, and H, and H.  Even L has.  BUT NOT ME.  And now I am going to wish this week away, a whole week of my life, two percent of my year, wished away.  It's not worth it, but on the other hand...  I don't know what to think.  Somebody tell me what to think.  You may have noticed, if you saw me today, that I've changed my necklace again.  It's now a tiny tortoise.

 

Anthony Burgess.  He wrote it, and that's what I'm going to read next.  Anthony Burgess.  I have to remember that.  Remind me.

 

It's coming up to Autumn.  I've never felt as good during the autumn as I have during the rest of the year, I've always been too busy to feel good.  Autumn is for loneliness for me.  It's for preparation for hibernation.  It's for working really hard so that I can be calm for the rest of the year.  Working really hard, at the cost of feeling isolated.  I'll live.  It's whether I can afford to live, that's the question.

 

Talking of isolation.  It's really odd, you see.  I've got to come round to this topic eventually, it may as well be now.  Love life, ladies and gentlemen.  Love life?  Cue wild twisting in my seat to check behind me.  What love life?  Where?  That's the thing.  I wish.  I know I go on about this, I keep going on about this like a cracked sodding record and I'm not the only person that feels like this, of course I'm not, everyone feels like this at some point in their life.  I just want someone to hold, I miss the contact of holding someone's hand and knowing that they don't want to run a mile from you.

 

As with every time I find myself in such circumstances, I am sorry, but my mind is blaring WHY?!  WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME?  It's not a case of "it's my thighs isn't it" syndrome, just... if only.  There are only a few people in this world, in fact, I can think of three of them, that I have never been unable to live up to, and I never will be able to.  Two of them I admit to if I'm talking to the right person.  The other person I don't admit to because it's the most cutting.  And all of them I am reasonably close to.  I'm sorry.  Fucking typical, isn't it?  I can't be the only person in the world.

 

How come everyone else gets their happy endings, even for a minute?  My parents have had twenty-five years of it today.  What makes me any different?

 

Why have I chosen this particular moment to get incredibly paranoid about that wonderful position I permanently seem to find myself in, that of Unfanciable Friend?  You know, the one you humour and ask for Her phone number and what She'd say if you asked Her out.  The one who never seems to...

 

You know, I give up on that.  There are over 1000 boys at Symonds, there are going to be.  They can't all be arrogant pricks, can't all be wrong.

 

But I have to wait another week for that, don't I?

 

All things are interlinked.

 

M's started getting in shittier and shittier moods, and they all seem to be directed at me.  I know L's going to get more of them this year, because she's going into the second year and is going to have to juggle starting to get hormone problems with everything else going on.  I can't feel worried for her, not right now, I don't know why, all I seem to be able to feel is vindictiveness that FINALLY it is someone else's turn and it is not all going to be directed at me.  Which is totally untrue, I've always been more likely to shout back than Lily so I get much more of the grief, it's just my nature, and hers, and M's, and D's to back M up every single time.  I wish he had a thought for himself, you know.  I wish he wasn't vindictive.  But the pot is calling the kettle black here, so I'm going to keep fooling myself that vindictiveness is alright, I can't be perfect anyway, and besides it's true that some of the grief will be diverted from me.  It'll keep me going for tonight.

 

If anyone can change me, it is me.  I just need the WILLPOWER, and I can be perfect.  Why don't I have it?  Does that make me a pad person, not to have the willpower to keep myself on the right track?  Even now, I'm admitting I'm doing the wrong thing.  It'd be so easy to change it.  I won't be able to live with myself.

 

ALRIGHT.  ALRIGHT, YOU WIN, OKAY?  HAPPY NOW?  I'M NOT VINDICTIVE.  I'LL DO WHATEVER IT TAKES TO STOP HER GETTING HURT AND YOU FUCKING WELL KNEW I WOULD HAVE WHATEVER I SAID.  I'VE ADMITTED IT NOW.  LEAVE ME ALONE.

 

Let me just add this before I sign off: if I get depressed on you, if I get teary, it's because I'm melodramatic.  I'm not a tortured innocent.  I deserve everything I get.  I've never been able to hold with tortured innocents.  I'm just due a drop in self-esteem right about now so... here we go.  The rollercoaster returns.  Just smile politely and don't tell other people I've gone all crying on you.  (Look, C, S, I couldn't help it, alright?  I just needed someone to talk to.  I won't do it again, I promise.  It wasn't fair on you.)  I won't thank you.  Mind you, knowing me right now, I won't do anything else either.

 

So that's me right now.  Is that alright, then?