Thing 3

My brain has taken three almost unrelated events from the past few months and combined them, into something that makes sense... In this blog, I will attempt to explain them to you, through the medium of origami.(Bare with me)


The three events were this: I finished school. I went to prom. I saw The Glass Menagerie.


And thing number 3 is this: Make an origami crane.


I really like origami cranes, they're pretty and in large number, supposedly a bit magic


"A thousand paper cranes are traditionally given as a wedding gift by the father, who is wishing a thousand years of happiness and prosperity upon the couple. They can also be gifted to a new baby for long life and good luck. Hanging them in one's home is thought to be a powerfully lucky and benevolent charm."


With this knowledge, as a leaving gift to our from tutor who had been so dedicated and supportive (and brought us chocolate fairly regularly) for the last 2 years, we decided to make 1000 paper cranes for her. This was slightly relevant as, during form time, she had forced us to do origami as some sort of bonding, enriching, stress relieving activity. We never actually progressed to anything as complex as a crane, I think we managed a goldfish once.


I hated origami, I am too impatient. Anyway, I think I had underestimated how many 1000 cranes actually is, or maybe I overestimated the amount of people that would be willing to give up their time to make them.

But even though there were about 4 of us and 5 days, we made tiny little cranes until our fingers were actually bleeding and we got there! (I think... we ran out of time to re-count them)

Thus, paper cranes, in my mind, have become sort of a symbol of determination. Also, of things turning out quite well.


This is why I spent hours, on weekend, sitting on the floor with my friend Jess, making paper cranes and running through her lines for The Glass Menagerie. This is when I first realised how fantastic the play is, I'd seen bits of it before and was entirely aware of what it was about but hadn't realised that, given your full attention, Tennessee Williams' writing is utterly incredible. Last night I went to see it properly (with Jess in it) and I fell even more in love with the play.

I am a very fidgety sort of person, I can't sit still, I can't focus on one thing for more than about 45 minutes. I also watch a lot of plays (you wouldn't think those are two personality traits that go together...) for this reason I (and people sitting near me) are acutely aware of how much I am enjoying a play. I can go to see a very good performance with great acting/set/tech and whatever else a play needs to be great and though I like it, I will fidget: I'll want to know what the time is, accidentally kick other members of the audience, bite my nails, wonder how long until it's finished and i can have a wee, etc. If I see a really good play then i manage to ignore the time completely, I'll be absorbed enough to not be fussed about the outside world. Then if I see a really fantastic play, I'll sit so still that I'm barely breathing because I don't want to miss even one second of it and I'll will it to keep going on for longer. As soon as it's finished, I'll want to see it again, immediately.

And The Glass Menagerie was one of those last sorts of plays.

"People are not so dreadful when you know them. That's what you have to remember! And everybody has problems, not just you, but practically everybody has got some problems. You think of yourself as having the only problems, as being the only one who is disappointed. But just look around you and you will see lots of people as disappointed as you are."


I like that quote. I think it's what connects the last of the 3 events: prom.

I've always been a very self conscious person. This has been a massive problem for me, sometimes just being alone on a bus I get paranoid, thinking that people are looking at me and judging me, sometimes it's so bad that I have to turn around and go home. Silly, I know.

This is made so much worse in situations where I have to make an effort with my appearance. That sounds bad... It's not like I ordinarily aim to look like I've stolen my clothes from a homeless person and slept in a tree, but I don't usually wear make up, I wear the clothes I want to and leave my hair however it wants to be. This is how I am happy. As soon as emphasis is put into looking 'nice', I start to freak out and get stressed and unhappy and grumpy then people hate me. This should have happened with the prom... but it didn't. For the first time in my life, I used my brain, in a logical way: "Stephanie, why are you so special that people will be judging you more than anyone else? Even if people are thinking bad things about you, or saying them, what does it matter? Really, why are they any better than you? They have their insecurities too, in reality, they'll be so fussed thinking about what they look like, they won't even notice how you look"

So, although I wasn't entirely happy, it was better than it's ever been before. And although I didn't have a fantastic time, that was more to do with my complete lack of interest in eating cheesy wotsits and squash whist dancing to dubstep. I just enjoyed seeing my friends without feeling sick with worry about what people were thinking about me. And this, although it won't seem much to you, feels like an enormous achievement and some sort of milestone for me.

Here's a photo:

However, I did realise that without my glasses, I look like some sort of a woodland creature. Hmm... Oh well, I guess there are worse things to look like...

Thing 33

Last week was pretty productive. I was proud of myself, I woke up early and went out and did useful stuff. This week... less so. I did another thing on my list of 101 things to do. Here we go:

Number 33 is 'Bake a Cake'. And as it is my lovely friend Izzy's birthday tomorrow (@parcmaison on the Twitter), I baked a cake for her. It looked like this:

And I left it outside her house today. I didn't leave any sort of note saying what it was or who it was from, which I realised about an hour ago, probably wasn't my best idea ever.

If you like the look of that cake and would like to make one for yourself, here is the bit of the book where it says to fill in the recipe. 

Yeah... I haven't tasted it, obviously. But maybe I'll ask Izzy what it's like and report back. Maybe, provding she didn't assume the anonmous parcel on her doorstep wasn't from a stalker or a terrorist and throw it away/phone the police. Also, hopefully it didn't rain and melt it or get too sunny and melt it. And hopefully she doesn't die from my lack of proper sensible recipe. 

I also discovered that at the back of this book, there's a page of little star stickers. If you don't know me well then you probably won't know that I LOVE STICKERS.

There's just, such a sense of achievement with a sticker. If I did something good in Primary school and the teacher gave me the choice between sweets and a sticker, I used to always chose the sticker. Of course, I was the only child in the world who did this, which probably puts me into some sort of 'freak' category, all on my own, BUT I'M HAPPY.
Anyway, at the top of each page there's a little space to put the sticker when you've achieved the thing! How good is that?!

Why don't all achievements in life get a sticker?

3 months and 4 days.

I'm bored. BOOORED. Hello.

I lasted a week of summer before getting all ineedsomethingtodoNOW.
I'm just no good at not doing anything.
I was meant to be doing things this week. But that didn't happen for... reasons.

Well, I'm making sense.

Today I drew this:

Because I know how to use my time efficiently. I'll send you a present if you comment and can tell me who it's supposed to be.

I also went on Pottermore for the first time since making my account then thinking "NO. Exams come before Harry Potter." Which I thought was pretty sensible/admirable/incredible.
I'm in RAVENCLAW. This is fantastic, since my parents first read me the books when I was 4 I've been a Ravenclaw in my head and now i'm a Ravenclaw... FOR REAL. Well, no. Still... in my head, but also on the internet. And the internet is Truth.

And here's a life update for you. For two weeks, I've been drinking my tea out of this mug:

Don't worry, I didn't buy it, I'm not insane. I made it, on a school trip about 4 years ago. (What is it?... Not a clue)
This is because my mother decided to clear out our entire house, this included all of our mugs. Except for this one, found in the back of a cupboard and deemed too terrible to give it to a charity shop. Nice.

Whilst protecting a handful of my belongings from my mother's Charity Shop Box, I found this book.

I got it 2 Christmases ago and at the time I thought "I'm nowhere near being old and boring, this does not concern me" and put it away.
Today I looked at it again and thought "gosh, I'm going to be 17 quite soon, that is old. And my nan told my yesterday (and every day I've seen her since I was born) that 'only boring people get bored' And I AM bored. Shiiiit"

So I looked inside the book. And I've decided to do some of these things. Number 36 is Start Your Own Blog. I did that. Here it is, see.

I'm going to see how many I can do before I turn 17. I have 3 months and 4 days, GOGOGO.

Feminism. From the perspective of a 16 year old idiot.

Yesterday I finished my exams. That was good. Today I woke up and realised I didn't know what to do with myself. So I read a book, as well as watching 3 episodes of Hi-De-Hi, painting my nails purple and eating cake, but the reading was the main thing. The book I chose to read was How To Be A Woman by Caitlin Moran, last week I discovered it in my mother's 'things to go to the charity shop' pile in the dining room and I saved it. I'm glad I did, it was pretty good. It was amusing and interesting and made me think quite a lot about these things:
1) Feminism
2) Abortions
3) Pickled eggs

First off, I am going to explain number 3, so that when I continue and talk about the other two, you will be able to put what I'm saying into some sort of perspective - ie. I am an idiot who struggles with even the most basic concepts.

So, at one point, near the end of the book, pickled eggs are mentioned, I don't remember why but I remember thinking "Picked eggs are interesting, I mean... how do they work?" Because pickled eggs don't have shells, otherwise they wouldn't be pickled but they remain egg-shaped. If you break an un-pickled egg into a jar of vinegar in order to pickle it, how does it stay looking all egg-shaped and not all splatted about like a fried egg or a poached one. Yeah. (don't worry, I've got it now, you don't need to explain)

Now, Abortions. Less cheerful, I know. Sorry. I read the chapter about abortions and realised, with some surprise, that I didn't have much of an opinion on this subject. Which is pretty unusual, I'm rather an opinionated sort of lass.

But I stopped reading for a minute to think. This: I think life is very special, I think having children is awesome and I don't think I could ever have an abortion. But what on earth am I basing that on? As a 16 year old who has never even been kissed, my knowledge of... anything in that area is incredibly limited. In school they made us watch a film of abortions taking place, I cried. It's silly, I know, but I found it more distressing than I probably should have and kept thinking about it and feeling a confused sort of unhappiness for WEEKS after.

But I do think it's fantastic that people in this country can choose to have an abortion, if that's what they think is the right thing, because in the end, it's down to the person with an unborn child inside them. Some people say that it's no different from murder. But it is, it's completely different to murder. If you kill a living, grown-up person, you're removing their life and everything that is 'them' from the world, causing untold amounts of grief and pain to everyone who is left behind to deal with the resultant mess. Aborting a baby, however a difficult decision it might be, is down to its parents - although I believe that it's still a person, it's not a person that has anything to do with other people, it's a little, unknown being in its own tiny world with the potential to be anything. And one of the many 'potentials' is to not be anything at all.

People who campaign against abortions being legal seem to be missing the point a little. Just because it isn't something YOU'D ever do, you have no right to be throwing around your opinions about it as if they were The Truth, in fact, because of your complete refusal to have anything to do with the subject, you have less right than anyone else to claim to know The Truth. It's all about CHOICE, it's legal in this country so that people are free to make a choice. Nobody is going to force you to have an abortion in the same way that if same sex marriage becomes legal, nobody is going to force you into that either. That's plain silly. So go away and try to find something else that has absolutely nothing to do to cause a fuss about. Preferably something that isn't going target people at potentially the most vulnerable and emotional point in their lives.

RIGHT, I'm feeling quite ranty now.

Feminism. It's not something that I entirely 'get' and although I've started to understand it a bit more today, I'm still not entirely sure. Maybe it's just a combination of way that feminism is presented in the media (the general 'feminists are mentals who hate men' perspective) and the few 'feminists' that I know - but here is the thing: I don't want to be part of a group of people who are just so ANGRY all the time. Angry about everything, about the world, hating what they were born into and therefore in a weird self-righteous sort of way, hating themselves.

There's no denying it's good, bloody brilliant in fact,  that women can vote, and be doctors and engineers, wear trousers and write books and not legally be raped by their husbands and be in charge of a country. And I know it's not so great that they don't get paid as well as men and get harassed in the street and often judged entirely on how they look. But generally, i really like being a girl. I like wearing pretty dresses and heels with flowers on and glittery nail varnish, the idea of one day getting married and having babies and a dog and baking carrot cakes for them all fills me with joy IN A BIG WAY. Also, I spend enough time with boys (20 minutes on the bus to school every morning) to know that they mostly talk about sport and their willies and I don't have much to say on either of those topics so don't want to be that much like them, at all, really.

My favourite thing Caitlin Moran wrote was this:

"Seeing the whole world as 'The Guys' is important. The idea that we're all, at the end of the day, just a bunch of well-meaning schlumps, trying to get along, is the basic alpha and omega of my world view. I'm neither 'pro-women' nor 'anti-men'. I'm just 'Thumbs up for the six billion'"  

Because this addresses my main issue with feminism: women want to be seen as equal, equal to what? Men, sure, that would change some stuff but it wouldn't actually fix the problem would it? Equality is this MASSIVE issue that is to do with more than just sex. It's about skin colour and religion and class and sexuality and whether you have a speech impediment or not. From what I can see, feminism, although saying that men and women are equally important, is actually saying that women are more important than, say, a gay man in an ethnic minority with a lisp. And that's not right is it? That's not what equality is at all, it should be about individuals - individuals going through their life being judged only on what they as a human actually do and say without any preconceptions being made about them.

Yep. That's what I think.
It's not much, but what can you expect, I've taken 21 exams in the past month, I'm exhausted.