Day 18: Set or share a goal

I have goals coming out of my ears at the moment. I'm lucky enough to have a set thing that I'm working towards.  I'm not a very career driven person and although my goal will include completing my NQT year it's more of a means to an end...


My medium term goal is to get to Australia. To do this I need to find a job and do a year of teaching. I'm doing it for two reasons. 1) Because it will be awesome fun! 2) it's the only way I can live with my foreign boyfriend in the silly little world.


By September 2011 I need a job
2012 completed
2013 be in Aus
2014 be in NZ
2015 England with Lawrence hopefully :)

Day 17: A photo that makes you sad

When thinking about photos that make me feel sad the first thing that springs to mind is University. I had the time of my life there. People always said "the days you spend at uni will be the best of your life" and it's just SO true. I really found my place there. I fitted in well, had tonnes of friends surrounding me and hours on end of entertainment. I made friends for life. It's tempting to post the photo of the whole of block 3 outside the block. Block 3 was a really special place to live and I loved every second of it. It was painful having to leave and move on. 


...but I did. I cemented my friendship with a selection of really special people and spent the next two years having an even better time. I don't have a good picture of us all together so I've decided to post two. 


My housemates:

and the others:

Masha got in there twice the lucky bugger. 


I've included these photos because these are the people I miss living near the MOST. However, I will see them all much more often now as I've moved to be closer to them :)

Day 16: Provide pictures of 5 celebrity crushes

So...this guy is the only "celebrity crush" I could think of off the top of my head. Jade and I used to have a whole list of people for our man wall but I've gone off them all. Michael C Hall AKA Dexter is definitely up there though. 

Others include:

And as a tiny kid I was obsessed with this guy for some reason:

Day 15: A letter to someone you wish you could meet

Dear Roald Amundsen.
You are dead! HOWEVER, we are related and you did really cool things that I know hardly anything about. I'm enormously interested in your life and the things you've accomplished but enormously lazy and easily distracted. I put off researching you and none of the relatives I have who are still alive can tell me much more than I already know. I find history rather dry when I read about it but if we could meet up I'd be able to ask a zillion questions. I feel like the family tree we share is very complicated and mysterious. There are lots of secrets and interesting people in it but I have no idea how to unlock it all. I wonder whether you'd be able to help me...


Over and out, Laura Day. 


P.S. Well done for being all explorery and such. 


Read about him HERE

Day 14: A song from your childhood.

The first one that jumps to mind is a lullaby my Mum used to sing me when I was a kid. I've only ever heard it sang by her so when trying to find it on youtube I realised it actually goes a little differently to the version I have in my head. Not QUITE sure why the video shows some ominous scene of poor kitchen hygiene and then pans off backwards as if to indicate that they are all soon to perish but......hey!

Hmm what else....oooo! "Coconut" by Harry Nilsson reminds me of being a kid. My mum always used to play it while we were all tidying our rooms at the same time. It used to make it fun!

Another one....this is the first single I bought. I'm so proud of my 12 year old self. 

Day 13: Whatever tickles your fancy.

I'm moving soon. So soon. This time next week I will be in my new bedroom. I'm all kinds of excited about it.....I'll have more freedom, more of a social life...more of a life in general.


So why do I feel so uneasy about it? I mean, I'm definitely ready and it's definitely what I want and what I've been pinning all my hopes on for the last 6 months.


Partly it's down to the sadness of leaving my nephews behind. I desperately want to be part of Reece's life as he goes through secondary school because sometimes I feel like I'm the only person he trusts and talks to. Then there's the little ones. They are at an age where they're really close with me but as soon as I go off for a period of time things may change. Leon will probably forget me like Dylan used to, while Dylan will just be less affectionate.


Mostly though, it's the thought of leaving my Mum. Obviously she wants what's best for me but....I worry about both of them because my Dad needs a lot of care and they argue so often... my Mum is likely to hate living here without me and I feel like that would be my fault.


GAH. How's that for a depressing spin on things!?


On a positive note I got together with Liz, Ben, Jade and Tim last week and had an epic time so...swings and roundabouts :]

Day 12: A self portrait.

Here I am with short arms, ridiculous fingers and no leg from the knee down. I can draw better in real life. I promise. 

Day 11: A favourite recipe.

RAINBOW CAKE!!!!!

Lawrence and I made this together when he was in Newcastle over Christmas. We disguised it as a boring blue cake. You can catch all the fun and shenanigans HERE:

Day 10: A letter to the person you hate most or caused you a lot of pain.

Hmmm. I'm reluctant to answer this one because the person who jumps to mind has already been written to and I would hate people to think I'm still bothered about that. Currently I don't hate anybody and I have nobody in my life who would hurt me as I have recently weeded out the unworthy. 


Oooh okay I've decided on the lucky winner!


Dear Luke
You used to be my best friend. I could tell you anything and I always pictured that you would be godfather to my kids (...or the nonreligious version of that...). The four of us were inseparable. Lisa-Marie ended up estranging herself but I almost expected that. Not from you. As soon as you got yourself a girlfriend who showed the tiniest hint of jealousy you dropped us like we had never been important to you and expected us to just accept that and find it normal. You didn't even try to make it work. 
I remember on that fateful day in 2007, which still stands as the most awful day of my life, you showed once and for all that you had changed into somebody I would grow to dislike intensely. I needed you that day but you "needed to see Rolo" to get your drug fix. Cheers for that!!!
Anyway....would have been nice if you'd grown out of that and got back into contact but my advice is to not bother. I went to Uni and made 2 new male best friends who would never be so pathetic. They more than filled the hole left by you.


LATER SKATER. 
Lorg. 

Day 9: My favourite bloggers.

Lawrence Craft :) Well this little blighter had to get a mention didn't he. I basically only started writing this so that I could read his entries while we're apart ETC. I like that he is forced into writing about things he'd usually never have to go into detail about. He always writes as though he's writing an entry for a competition for linguistic proficiency, but then that's just CHARMING and Lawrenceish!


Burton Although at the moment he seems to be obsessed with telling the world I was hated at Uni. Not QUITE true. Tony's posts are interesting because I want him to reveal the real Tony rather than that act he does.


OTHER THAN THAT I READ NO BLOGS! Lawrence introduced me to This American Life which I like listening to depending on the topic.

Day 8: A photo of yourself taken recently.

Here I am at the Tate Modern in complete camouflage!! This coat has been the subject to much mockery during its stint as my winter jacket. People seemed to think there would never be an opportunity for me to be disguised while wearing it. WELL WHO'S LAUGHING NOW!!!?


This photo was taken during a day out with Craft. We also went to the Science Museum aaaand...I think just a restaurant. We attempted to go to Waterloo Bridge but then we fucked that right off cause it was windy and shit. 


THEN I HAD TO EAT SOME MUSHROOM. I hated it. Then we played RUMMI CUB. No Es to be seen. 

Day 7: A YouTube video you find funny

Hmm. I'm not really a YouTube person. I like The key of awesome parodies:

...

That's all.

Day 6: A list of what I ate today.

Well this is the lamest thing to post about ever. 


Lunch

• 1 pear
• 1 orange
• Cereal bar
• Scotch egg
• Luncheon meat sandwich

Dinner

• Pork chop
• Peas
• Mashed potato

And there you have it. Thrills and spills a'plenty. 

Day 5: A letter to an ex

I've been putting this one off because... well. Everyone knows that there's only one "ex" that I could possibly have anything to say to in a letter. Hmm...I'm forgetting my audience. Strangers mostly.


The person I'm thinking of writing it to is not particularly somebody who I feel I need to speak to. It's just that other ex somebodies ended amicably and are still friends of mine. This particular person is somebody I have a deep disliking for so it felt more worthy of this post.


Hello person I'm glad I escaped from. 
I'm not STILL angry with you. I was once. My dislike towards you is purely down to the fact that we were amazingly close and then suddenly I was treated like shit because, ultimately, you felt guilty about what you'd been doing.


I've chosen to write to you because I'd like to thank you! I'm really pleased that everything happened the way it did, because if I hadn't met such a little wanker in 2007, things may have turned out differently. That would be awful because I've currently never been happier. I have amazing friends and a boyfriend thousands of times more of a man than you were.


GUTTED.


Yours sincerely, Laura J Day  

DAY 4: A photo of you taken over ten years ago

Here she is!!!

I was three here and tall for it. My little brother had just been born and I was being all older sisterish and trying to help my Mum. Actually I've decided there's not much to even say about this photo cause I don't even remember it. I'll find another.

This is JUST under 10 years ago but I thought it was interesting and it's my b-log (thanks Tony!) so in it goes. This was the day of my 13th birthday. Yes, my brother was fat then. Yes I am dressed like a retard. Anyway, my parents took us to London for the day and we went on the London Eye. I totally ruined this day for everyone. I was really struggling with the idea of becoming a teenager. I felt like it meant I had to start growing up and stop being a kid. It over whelmed me and I cried a bit on the way to the ol' Eye. I didn't know how to articulate my feelings so I just looked sulky and ungrateful and my parents got annoyed with me. I just wanted to feel like they'd look after me all the time.

Weirdly I felt like that again this evening when I realised that I will be moving out again very soon.

Look at his fat little elbows!

Day 3: Your favourite film.

Hmmm. Do I have a favourite film? I love watching movies but there are a few genres that I never get along with. Actiony things and overly complicated things. Popular examples of both of these are both films that I really didn't enjoy - The Dark Knight, and Inception. To be fair though, I was falling asleep through both of them.

I find it hard to concentrate on a film the whole way through. Usually I feel too embarrassed to ask someone what's going on because I feel like I'm an idiot for not getting it. Lawrence really enjoys it when I don't understand Battlestar Galactica and keep asking him if people are Cylons. It's his favourite.

There are a couple of movies coming to my mind that I could watch over and over again and feel totally uplifted:

Little Miss Sunshine is GREAT. When I think back to it....it'snot particularly fast moving or even hilariously funny. There are looooads of films I've found funnier and maybe even others I find to be more moving. The thing that makes this movie stand out as a favourite for me is that the level of FEEL GOOD feelings that suddenly swarm over me during the scene where the whole family are dancing together on stage. I love it.

Then there's this lovely little bugger. I'm sure almost all girls love this film and in my experience, most guys I force into watching it love it too. I think the best thing about it is that there are so many different story lines and they are all woven together. You can watch it loads of times and still find out something new about how two people in the filmknow each other. I also love the opening and closing scenes being set at the airport as for me, airports and train stations are what I think of when I think of love. All my friends are scattered about around England and I'm always meeting them at train stations. Then there's the airport. A place for either feeling SUPER EXCITED or like my world is ending. Thanks to Craft. What a wanker.

DAY 2: Make a bulleted list of everything that happened in your day

• Woke up around 7.
• Went back to sleep.
• Woke uparound 8. 
• Continued in this vain until around 9:30.
• Hadn't heard from Lawrence so decided he was dead. Obviously.
• Played Mine Sweeper repeatedly with the intention of winning before getting ready for supply of the day as a winner.
• Gave up.
• Got ready for supply of the day as a loser.
• Got on the bus at 10:45
• Checked to see if Lawrence was dead. 
• Got on the Metro
• Checked to see if Lawrence was dead.
• Mooched around for half an hour because I was really early for school. 
• Went in and found out I was late cause the nursery kids go in at 12:20 now.
• Celebrated Chinese New Year with a bunch of 4 year olds. Happy year of the Rabbit, world!
• Witnessed a 4 year old with no qualms about nibbling on a chicken's foot.
• Discussed Jack's odd choice of vinegar and brown paper to cure his head wound with a young boy. 
• Found out that "Old Mother Hubbard" has several inappropriate verses involving death, smoking and beer.
• Danced around in the playground with a giant dragon.
• Sent the kids home.
• Checked to see if Lawrence was dead. 
• Lawrence was alive. 
• Went home.
• Talked to Lawrence on the phone. Was only lunch time for him.

And there you have it. A long and dull list of my achievements today. I anticipate that I will communicate with Craft on Skype later and mostprobably go to sleep too late for me to get up nicely for my day of teaching year 2. Le sigh. 

DAY 1: Introduce yourself / List your likes and dislikes

Yo! Laura Day is the name. I also go by the nickname Lorg. Furthermore, I have been known to answer to Log, Tron and Tronington. I'm a 22 year old Qualified Primary School Teacher...without a job. I'm also stranded in Newcastle with desperate dreams to move back to the South Coast but have barely 2 pennies to rub together.

This is largely down to the aforementioned bad/exciting decision making. I kinda preferred to travel about the globe with my foreign boyfriend to settling down and looking for a job. I don't regret a single second of it but sometimes I do wish that I was luckier. Or lazy enough to go on Deal or No Deal or something...The Cube might be fun :)

I can't cook, I take no notice of my bank transactions and no interest in budgeting, I need others to help me make decisions, I can't drive, I've never done a big supermarket shop on my own, I can't remember my home telephone number and I stay in bed til the absolute last minute despite the fact that I'm a supply teacher and need to be up and ready at the drop of a hat.

Basically I'm a shambles! The up side is that I have fun and am rarely bored.

Likes:

• Not knowing where I'm going to be living this time in 3 years. 
• In fact...I like not knowing where I'm going to be living this time in 3 months!
• That I've kept in touch with loads of my Home and Uni friends. 
• That I live round the corner from my nephews and get to be a part of their lives as they grow up while I'm here. 
• Bright colours.
• Watching cartoons.
• Feeling popular.
• Challenging myself.
• Talking on the phone.
• Sitting about with friends doing nothing in particular.
• Long train journeys and listening to music while I look out the window. 
• Looking forward to things.
• Reading books on my BRAND NEW KINDLE!

Dislikes

• Living in Newcastle.
• Missing my friends.
• Having a Boyfriend who lives 5 hours in the past and on another continent.
• Growing apart from people.
• Growing up.

There. I'm sure that was riveting for you. 

So...I'm going to try and keep a blog.

I've always liked the idea of writing a blog. I keep a diary. I have done since the age of about 10. They're awful to read back. I had an obsession with this one boy all the way through secondary school and I wrote down everything he said and did. The thing is...because I was sad enough to write such detailed descriptions of my days, I can remember, with amazing clarity, everything that happened between the ages of 13 and 16. The sad part is that it's the years between 18 and 22 that have been filled with such life changing and personality shaping stuff....and at the moment I can remember everything because it's fresh...but because I never wrote it down I'm going to forget it all when I'm an old lady trying to tell my grandkids about it all......or when I'm a spinster trying to tell my cats...

With a diary there is only one audience member. Yourself. You read it back and you can't help hating yourself for the way you phrased things back then...or the things you did. When you write a blog you're writing it for other people. Then you can make fun of yourself, which is always so much easier to read back. I don't want to be one of those people who advertises that this is out there...I'm not going to link friends to it on facebook...maybe I will one day but I don't intend to. The only people who will read it will be strangers and my boyfriend. In a way that makes me feel like it's pointless to write it but hey!

Last thing..."Being rubbish at this thing called life." is not an "emo" title. It may SEEM that way...but I'm just refering to the fact that I seem incapable of making decisions for myself. When I try to things go wrong. I make crazy decisions that mean I can't settle down and start my life yet...like travelling and dating an American and moving to the wrong place etc. But to be honest...I like that I'm like that. I'm 22. If I was settled and living in a house with a boyfriend and thinking about babies and careers already...I wouldn't half be bored :)

I will take on the 50 day challenge!!!! It goes a little something like THIS:

DAY 1 Introduce yourself / List your likes and dislikes
DAY 2 Make a bulleted list of everything that happened in your day
DAY 3 Your favourite film
DAY 4 A photo of you taken over ten years ago
DAY 5 A letter to an ex
DAY 6 List of what you ate today
DAY 7 A YouTube video you find funny
Day 8 A photo of you taken recently
Day 9 List some of your favourite bloggers
Day 10 A letter to the person you hate most or caused you a lot of pain
Day 11 Share your favorite recipe
Day 12 Post a self-portrait
Day 13 Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 14 A song from your childhood
Day 15 A letter to someone you wish you could meet
Day 16 Provide pictures of 5 celebrity crushes
Day 17 A photo that makes you sad
Day 18 Set or share a goal
Day 19 Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 20 A letter to someone that changed your life
Day 21 Your favourite television program
Day 22 A photo that makes you happy
Day 23 Share one of your current favourite tunes
Day 24 Time to face morph
Day 25 A letter to someone you judged by their first impression
Day 26 Favorite books
Day 27 A talent of yours
Day 28 Favourite places to shop
Day 29 Provide the HEX code of your favorite color
Day 30 A letter to the friendliest person you knew for only one day
Day 31 Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 32 A photo you took
Day 33 What you’re craving right now
Day 34 Your favourite quote
Day 35 A letter to your crush
Day 36 Some hobbies of yours
Day 37 A song that you like to dance to
Day 38 A photo of your parent(s)
Day 39 Zodiac sign and do you think it fits your personality
Day 40 A letter to a deceased person you wish you could talk to
Day 41 Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 42 Bad habit(s) you have
Day 43 A picture of your favourite place in the world
Day 44 Something that fascinates you and why
Day 45 A letter to yourself a year ago
Day 46 Photos of personal things in your life (pets, family, house, ect.)
Day 47 Birthday wish list
Day 48 A photo of you right now
Day 49 Hopes, dreams and plans for the next 365 days
Day 50 A letter to your reflection in the mirror