The blogger is back! Maybe i was hibernating?

So I guess I've been taking "time off". Not time off from doing anything, but time off from presenting and portraying and sharing what i do with the wider world. Though, my usage of Facebook has skyrocketed! Instead of thinking too much about what i'm doing and being well focussed and driven i've been going along through feeling. Which is fine, and ok. This is my gap year, my year off; and let's face it, i think i am allowed to do that!

However...over the last few weeks...the guilt has began to creep up my wonky spine and the feeling of slouching into a comfortable rut has began to make me restless as i've watched the sun slowly creep into my mental cave. Yes, i get moments of paranoia and worry that I haven't "done enough stuff" but i've come to discover that this anxiety is very much a part of me and i will always be like that. Whether it's on a day where i've spent too much time on the internet, trying and failing to sing and play guitar or one where I've got up at the crack of dawn, skied peak to creek, pushed 2 miles and made a jelly. (i don't know where "making a jelly" came from...but it's a good example!)

I guess the best way to describe how I have been recently is, "19". Well...the nearest i can get to acting my age that is. I'll always own an old head on young, battered shoulders but recently i've just thought.."f*** it". And relaxed. Well, now i'm bored and restless of that.


My hair is back to being colourfully dip-dyed...(purple this time folks!), the wandering round Downtown Vancouver listening to "This is England" and "straight to hell" will continue, but the drive and momentum has returned. I don't know where from, but it has. It's a little like when your a kid and the week before you start back to school during the summer holidays you feel ready to write essays about a new period of history. Or a more accurate comparison to my situation right now, is a little like my study of American civil Rights. It's time to step things up a notch and look deeper and work harder. Like...going from my year 10 perspective of "MLK is good, Black Nationalism is bad" to my year 13 "crazy idea" of, "I think i'm going to do my entire history coursework on Black Nationalism" and then proceed to get full marks from it. (I still smirk gleefully at this accomplishment!) Though a lot like my Black Nationalism coursework...(and the staff of the Winstanley History Department will vouch for me!) I really, really struggle with organisation, structure, focus and time keeping. It's just how I am. But when i tackle these little characteristics and tie them down  and actually get to the point and focus on what i want to achieve then...well...the outcomes can often turn out pretty amazing! There was this day, (probably pretty much exactly a year ago...as i spookily just read a "deadline"status from the history department's Facebook) where i was sat in the history cupboard with Ruth (my former teacher) with one of my many drafts of coursework splattered  mixed up and all over the desk. "This is good!" She said (along these lines at least) , "It's just all mixed up and there's extra bits you don't need, thrown in..but it's finding those bits to take out, without getting rid of the good stuff that's difficult!"...and that's me. That is an exact and perfectly accurate portrayal of my brain, heart and everything in between. But it's ok. I know that it is possible to sort it out and get what i want from "it" in order to do great things. As...well, i've done it, haven't i? From that mixed up mash of words, ideas and new exciting discoveries...i got full marks! All through shear hard work, focus and some how managing to tame the "wild parts" of me that make me "me" and fuel the successful "me". They just sometimes create way too many emissions!

So I know I can do it. And by writing this, I am making a start of "doing it" and addressing "it." I will never attempt to remove my crazy excited and hyper-active characteristics that allow me to be a political-historical geek/Folk-punk rock fan who watches the BBC 6 o'clock news at 11am.; Who also bizarrely wants to build a career in outdoor adaptive recreation and use my skills that i steal from all over to create something brilliant! It would be stupid to even attempt that. But i can figure and now pro-actively control and mould my own characteristics and emotions the way i want, not what anyone else wants and do that with the physical and concrete aspects of my life. I get anxious when it comes to decision making through the fear of "letting people down". Being injured at what now looks like a very early age, i've become all too aware of the stops people appear to put out in order to allow me to do what I want to do. But that sometimes, is just how it is. And i've got to just allow myself to to breath, relax and understand that it is ok to change your mind and kindly decline offers...even after accepting them because well..yes, i may be "Marvellous Miss Laura May" who appears driven (apparently) but i'm 19 and my life has been a roller-coaster over the last few years. I've now had a bit of time to slow down and think a little...i've taken a step back away from the track and instead of jumping on a flying train a million miles long packed with people, suitcases and stray dogs, I've decided to wait for the bus and...it's just arrived and looks half full to me.

In short, I'm declining my accepted offer from the University of Cumbria to study outdoor education and I'm going to apply to study Outdoor Recreation Management at Capilano university here...in Vancouver.

It's amazing what you can discover when you're not really searching.

Power: ?

Say shit that no one understands.
Or
Say shit that everyone understands to be racism.

It seems pretty negative.
Maybe it is.
I think the entire political, economic and social system (History A level student) that we have all been a part of, whether we like it or not, is on the brink of something...People, normal people, like me!...are seeing cracks, questioning, getting angry.
The cracks are getting wider and we're seeing through them...most people have something against most members of Parliament, (especially The Lords), thanks to the media matrix we live in. However most of us don't trust the those guys in red tops with flashy cameras that are supposed to keep the powers that be under control. They are the bloody powers that be...well, they were.
Almost no one feels (well I don't) generally happy and reassured by the idea of living an ordinary capitalist lifestyle, it seems people are clinging on to this bizarre concept called "fame" is it because we are so afraid of being forgotten?

Though these are all ideas whizzing round my head early on a Tuesday morning; to me and most of the people around me, they seem pretty accurate. I clearly don't have the power to form opinions for myself, we saw that with The English degree that was an never will be. Since that day of realising that I'm never going to be quite your average outstanding academic who would happily spend 3 years living in a box with a £27 000 debt to throw my toys out of my pram with, I have this annoyingly content, powerful feeling of..."Fuck this! I can do what I want...it doesn't matter anymore!"

So as a cynic, (as that is what I have spent the past 13 years of my life being taught to be.) The people or power that's tried to keep us down should know that by attempting to scare us into either rushing to uni to save ourselves from that scary place some people call society...or not go at all because of "money", hasn't worked.
Ok, majority of us have given in without even a second thought...I almost did. But I didn't, and that's the key thing.
There's a few of us, a few angry kids with minds voices and more importantly, education and the internet at our finger tips.
We know stuff, we can figure stuff out and now we're free and no longer afraid, we can do something about it.

Watch out "power", there's a storm brewing, and I think the kettle's just boiled.