Practically Alice

I don't know whether it was the abnormally large amount of coffee I drank, or my medicine, or my pain or even my sheer weariness but last night I started to doubt things. Suddenly nothing felt real anymore; nothing felt like it was actually the way things are, or should be. Cars, buildings, trees felt like nothing compared to the stars above me and the air around me. I don't know why. I feel like it's probably because I've cooped myself up and worked every single day and had too much coffee and my meds are playing up but it was such an overwhelming feeling that it was really difficult to ignore. To feel as if everything around is false... or not false, just something wasn't right is a really weird feeling. I can't really put my finger on what it was, it was just weird. I probably should sleep more... and read more... and stress less.

I almost wish I could sit here in my Sixth Form Study Center and write something entirely and completely profound, but alas due to my failure with regard to writing I cannot. What I will say though is that I cannot believe that in a month I will be leaving. Sixth Form has exceeded my expectations in terms of relationships, friendships, lessons and teachers. The exams I could've done without but it is so inspiring to be in an environment whereby you can actually talk about the subjects you enjoy in depth. We, as adults - or thereabouts - are able to have chats with our teachers that are more mature and more interesting; I've just had an hour and a half of philosophy revision where we've had the most interesting and envigorating discussions. It's so liberating to be able to argue and talk and contemplate things that you wouldn't normally talk about. The social aspects of Sixth Form have been great too - we've been able to go into town and go to the library t...

I wish I could take a snapshot of every single place I've been and loved. Not a physical picture that I can look back on but a means by which I can recall it - recall the memory and the feelings and the very essence of being there. Sometimes you look up at the stars and you get a sort of feeling overcoming you; it builds and builds and builds until, sometimes, you cannot breathe. I don't know what that feeling is but I want to recall it and bathe in it. There are times where you're in good company and having a particular moment that you want to cling onto but simply cannot. I want to taste it and feeling and be knocked out by the sheer breathlessness of it - I want to be able to close my eyes and be there again. I hate that I cannot.

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...