Practically Alice

I've never really thought about it before but I really do not have much faith in myself. Despite being all up on the self-confidence thing, I truly don't trust my ability to write well. As I pondered the pages of an edition of Vogue  I realised how little I know about that sort of thing. And by that sort of thing I mean article writing or editing or, quite frankly, the thing I want to go into in the future. Sure I can scrounge together an english essay or film a video but I can't really write. They say 'you only life once' and this phrase is meant to instill some sort of enthusiasm towards doing everything (and apparently means one should dance the night away at a certain club...) and being spontaneous. This past year I've been more and more daring in what do, of going out of my comfort zone and it really has been fun but there are still some things that I simply cannot close my eyes and leap with. Vogue is lying in front of me right now and it's foreign...

John Green tells us that "Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia" and I thoroughly believe that, in some ways, that's true. We talk about our future, our deaths, what happens after we die with a sense of recollection. It's odd but I think we perhaps do it because it's the only way we know how; we only know how to remember. Our only experiences of death are those whereby we have experienced someone dying or have read/watched someone either dying or experienced someone else dying. In a weird way, we are recollecting.  Similarly, we can only imagine was our future will be like by the experiences we've already had. Take, for example, university. My experience of university is purely through open days, hearing other people's experiences and visiting my friend - my idea of what it will be like is formed purely by experiences. I can sit here and imagine who I'm going to marry, or what I'm going to do as a job, or many other things - but that is...

I wrote this poem in the summer of 2011 when I had a holiday in Cornwall. Since I have some really good friends there now I thought I'd share it. Enjoy. The Two Fishermen They stand and talk I imagine they’d stink of smoke and whisky and fish If you got close enough. Their skin is rough and deep russet red in colour. I imagine their hands holding wives and daughters hands Both parties knowing that fish lie better there. One smokes and gulps down some lager From a plastic cup; He imagines it stronger. The smaller one is dressed in beige, He scratches his white beard And readjusts his fisherman’s cap; I imagine his sister picking it out for him, a well-loved Christmas present. The men talk fast, using slang, I imagine for a moment that I can understand them. I am close to home but everything’s so foreign; These are different farmers to the ones I know, farmers of the sea. They stand and talk I imagine their life stories and write poems ab...

Something I've noticed through both personal experience and observing other individuals is how human beings deal with the concept of being 'okay'. Generally we all have good things and bad things going on in their lives, take me for example: bad - back pain, medicine; good - family, friends, home, life, food, money... good stuff happening and change (change is an 'okay' right now rather than a 'not okay'). I happen to think that my life is  okay at the moment because, for me, the good stuff out ways the bad stuff by a milestone. Throughout a day I may become not okay but on the whole I am - on the whole I'm happy. I have noticed though, through reflection and looking at others, that we almost have this desire... this tendency to want to point at the 'not okay' bits of out lives and make them of a higher importance than our 'okay' bits. If I'm having an average day it can much more easily become a bad day than a good because I reme...

It's getting late (I'm making my way over to my favourite place... I have really got to stop randomly following my sentences with song lyrics!) and the street lights have gone out. That possibly indicates that I should be asleep but I'm going to defy that for a little while longer. I'm sitting right by my bedroom window, it's funny... I used to be scared of being by my bedroom window because I thought someone would pop their head up and scare me - I guess I'm still scared but something has made me that little more brave. I've noticed that recently; I'm feeling more 'brave'. I feel more impulsive and like I want to change things. I'm kind of itching for university, but I'm scared too. Terrified really; I don't like change all that much. I have a real desire to sit under the stars on some damp grass. To just lie back and look up into... well into all of that . Some people would say that it makes them feel small, insignificant and th...