Why I wouldn't be a great journalist:

A conversation with a friend about someone I quite like:

"...and he smells really nice, I noticed that today. I almost told him, but then I stopped myself."

"You should have told him!"

"But then he'd think I was sniffing him."

"You WERE sniffing him."

"You really don't get it do you?"

It would have been weird to say, right? I can't be sure because I always manage to get things like this wrong.

The other day during a conversation with someone I had met for the first time that day, I exclaimed "Wow! You're 44? I never would have thought that!" She looked a bit surprised, then asked me how old I had thought she was, to which I replied "um... like, 41?". She frowned, everyone else we were with laughed. I don't get it, I thought people liked to be told they look younger than they are?

Generally, I find the way other people think of things quite abnormal. Particularly things regarding the news and other current affairs.

Earlier today my father came rushing into my bedroom "Stephanie, there's 5 police cars in the road! Let's look out of your window" and my reaction was "meh, if you want". There's always people getting arrested or murdered somewhere outside, I don't see why I should look. If, however, there had been a man with an interesting hat or an dog with a handsome face, I would have looked. They're nice things to see, things that you can't read about in a newspaper everyday, yet most people don't think this is worth looking at.

I liked the Royal Wedding being in the papers because it was so beautiful and happy and exciting! I didn't believe it would ever be over - it just seemed like a constant, then it happened and we were all "WOW!" and now it's gone and we're like "hmm... ooh look, someone just got stabbed and we're all going to be killed by terrorists - AWESOME!"

I am aware of these things, but I can't help thinking it's best not to get too excited about them, just ask yourself if there's anything you can do to help, if not, move on. Bad things are always going to happen, but people making lots of money from it and obsessing over other people's misery doesn't seem right to me.

Or maybe I'm the one with the abnormal view of the world?

Panic.

Panic Attack: n. The sudden onset of intense anxiety, characterized by feelings of intense fear and apprehension and accompanied by palpitations, shortness of breath, sweating, and trembling. Also called anxiety attack.

I've panicked about things before, trembling a little, feeling short of breath and a bit dizzy, it's inconvenient and a little scary. But not terrifying. 

I can tell you what is terrifying...

Let me set the scene for you:

It's about 10.30 on Friday night in Paris, it's raining outside but you don't know that, you're curled up on the floor of Chateau D'Eau metro station hyperventilating, sobbing and shaking. Your eyes are closed because everything is spinning. Crowded round you are 20 other girls and several drunk and/or homeless French people and they're STARING. Kneeling next to you is a concerned yet very awkward language teacher. You wish they'd stop staring. You feel like you are going to die. Somebody puts their hand on your shoulder and you retch, in that moment you thank every God that you don't really believe in that you'd had the sense not to eat anything that day - there are very few things that could make this situation worse, one of them being throwing up. 

Basically, it wasn't nice. It was traumatic and embarrassing and I'm finding it hard to write about it.

I've always been a little bit claustrophobic, but only a little bit. Underground trains in London don't bother me very much at all and I have honestly never been so frightened by anything before.

It started when we got on the metro after dinner, it was quite crowded and i was squished in the middle of a lot of people. It was uncomfortable and I began to shake, at every stop more and more people got on, there wasn't room for them but they kept getting on. It was awfully unpleasant, I was shaking quite a lot by this point. But then something else happened, two angry French people started shouting at each other quite close to where I was standing, the shouting turned to pushing the punching, they were having a full on fight and there really wasn't room for it. I was so squashed, I thought i was suffocating, everything was blurry, I could only hear people screaming and shouting and swearing in French. My legs gave way but we were so tightly packed into the stupid train that I didn't fall, I just stayed wedged between two people I didn't know. We were so close to our stop but someone had pressed the emergency button and we weren't going anywhere. I actually can't remember between then and when we reached the station and people began to move, someone (i later found out it was one of my friends) noticed me, grabbed me by my coat and dragged me out of the door where I fell onto the platform. 

I don't know how long I sat there for, It could have been a very long time, It could have been just 5 minutes and I don't remember anything else until a lot later that evening.

It might not sound that bad to you but it was, it was one of the worst experiences of my life. We had to go on the metro what felt like a thousand other times over the weekend and it didn't get much better. Although I could mostly get over myself once we got out of the station and onto the street, I think I cried more times over the weekend that I ever have done before. One of the teachers told me I was really brave, I didn't feel brave, I felt stupid and irritated at myself for not being about to do something simple that everyone else could do so easily. I was so scared of throwing up that I didn't eat between Friday morning and Monday evening - I'm not sure if that made the situation better or worse, all I know is that I'll be very happy if I never go on the metro ever ever again. 

It was one of those times where everything that could possibly go wrong did go wrong for our relatively small group of 30 students and 3 teachers, we made this list:

• missing trains
• people forgetting passports
• people getting left behind at St Pancras
• delaying Eurostar
• lost luggage
• not enough hotel rooms booked
• breaking windows
• getting surrounded by scary men in an alleyway before the French teacher came and chased them away
• people getting lost on their own in Paris
• allergic reactions
• two people throwing up EVERYWHERE
• asthma attacks
• panic attacks *ahem* 
• stolen money/phones
• one of the teachers stepping in unnatural amounts of dog poo
• lost metro tickets and passports

I think we were cursed. But I'm not saying I didn't enjoy the trip, because I really did, I made new friends and learnt so many new things, had opportunities to do things I'd never get to do or even think about doing otherwise. The teachers were supportive and caring and everyone was so lovely to everyone else, we all became so close and without the bad stuff it wouldn't have been nearly as funny and exciting and memorable. I don't regret going one bit, I loved all of it... well, most of it. 

A Recipe For Brilliant Friends

There are very few people i could spend almost 72 hours, without sleeping, with and still love afterwards. I think, when you've found someone you could do that with, then you have a proper best friend. I'm lucky - i have 2.

Best friends also have to:

- not care when you endlessly take the piss out of them.

- make you laugh so much that you think you're going to throw up your lungs.

- be willing to eat food that you've spat out.

- be thinking exactly the same thing as you so that when you break out into spontaneous dancing, you're both doing exactly the same thing. 

- never be too embarrassed to go out in public with you, especially when you're dressed like THAT:

I was sitting outside Bromley South station on Wednesday morning when i thought "i must actually be quite brave to go out wearing this". I was wearing this. 

I realised later that it was probably a mistake wearing such alarming tights. STOP STARING AT MY LEGS!! But my friend was wearing flowery leggings and bright pink DMs. People on the tube were looking at us.

The next day i wore black shorts, red tights, a white vest top and a blue shirt. 

The red tights got laddered so i took them off. 

My parents didn't say anything. 

So i decided to see how far it could go. i took the shirt off and just wore the shorts and vest top.

Still, nobody said anything. 

So i put the shirt back on, took off the vest top, did the top 3 shirt buttons up then rolled the rest of it up.

Nothing.

So i took my shoes off. 

Then walked out the house with my friend. Two minutes later i got too embarrassed so turned back and declared "You call yourself PARENTS??! i have just left the house wearing almost no clothes!! you're supposed to tell me off! you're supposed to CARE!? you have just let me leave the house looking like a complete slut!!"

Their response - "Oh." 

Nice to know that they take an interest in me. 

Anyway, i got sidetracked. 

-You need to have similar interests to your best friend. We like IKEA. 

So we went to IKEA. It was fun. I bought these beautiful things.

Any Swedish speaking people reading this? Does "påsk" mean Easter? 

-We went to the Natural History Museum on Wednesday. It's very important that your best friend will want to go to cool places like that with you and won't laugh at you for suggesting it.

-Possibly most importantly, you have to know some of the same people in order to laugh about them behind their back.

We made this playlist. 9N It's people in our class, we tried to use the best possible songs but for some of them we didn't have much choice. 

Finally, i have discovered something even better than facebook stalking - formspring stalking. This is the most irritating person in the world's formspring: http://www.formspring.me/IshabelP I will give a prize to the first person able to guess which of the questions i have asked her. 

Here's a video my other best friend made. She has this amazing talent of always taking dreadful photos of me. Anyway, enjoy. (you might remember those cakes from this blog)

Wednesday

We went to Wells, there's a market there on Wednesday.

After staying up most of Tuesday night, reading The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' nest, i was tired and in a bad mood for most of the morning.

It started badly. The first thing i said as i got into the car was - "you do know the way, right?". My grandad laughed. "Of COURSE i know the way, i've been there hundreds of times before." Well, he didn't know the way. We got lost out on the levels. again. I saw a cat that had been shot.

But we finally got there, and Wells is a really nice place. It was the first time i've been there and it's not been raining.

Here it is, not raining -

As it had taken a ridiculously long time to get there, the first thing to do was have coffee. There we were, minding our own business, when an man decides to come and sit with us. This isn't normal. He then starts to talk to us about his knee surgery. Also, not normal. Then, he rolls his trouser leg up and starts showing us the scars from the operation. This is just weird. He ended his speech with. "Ok then. Goodbye.", got up and left the cafe. then a woman who worked there came over to us and said "don't mind him, he does that a lot." Oh.

Then we went to the market. It mostly sold food, and terrible slippers.

Next, we went to walk around the Cathedral and the gardens are various other places.

I was puzzled. There are normally ducks here. Where did they all go? Ducks don't just disappear. Do they?

Anyway, i bought a pencil. Not very interesting.

Then things got a bit strange. I was standing outside a shop, my grandmother had gone inside and my grandad was in the bank, when all of a sudden, i very posh woman grabbed my by the elbow and shoved me in the other direction. I was half asleep and for some reason, i was standing in front of a fat old man.

"smile" said the posh woman. and about a second later, a picture was taken. "You don't mind this being in the newspaper, do you? No? Good." I blinked, shocked. The fat man shook my hand and it was then that i noticed they were all wearing blue rosettes. Ugh. Great. Thankfully, my grandad came over to rescue me.

"Hell would have to freeze over before I, or any member of my family had any sort of association with the conservatives." Then he walked away, dragging me behind him.

Ow. I don't want my picture to be in any newspaper. Especially not with some Conservative MP.

Anyway, Wells was infuriating my Grandad too much so we went to Glastonbury for lunch.

This is Glastonbury.

It's full of odd people and shops.

This is where we had lunch, it's very nice. i had vegetable pie and chips and somehow managed to get vinegar in my eye.

There's a lot of homeless people in Glastonbury. Homeless hippies. One of them was carrying a bow and arrows. Surely that's unnecessary, and illegal?

There's also this bakery. They sell very very small Cornish pasties that for some completely incomprehensible reason, my grandparents love. I think they're probably what made me become vegetarian.

I also saw this book:

No they don't. This is a blatant lie.

A Short Conversation With My Father

Me (pointing to the front of this week's Radio Times): "Is that a sheep?"

Barry: "No. It's a lamb."

Me: "it doesn't look like a sheep"

Barry: "that's because it's a lamb"

Me (pointing again): "is that a woman?"

Barry: "No. It's Kate Humble."

Me: "It looks like a sheep."

Barry: "Yes. Yes it does... i can see how this is confusing stuff for someone like you."

Quite often, usually after I've done something like turned the grill on then put food in the oven and come back in an hour not understanding what happened, or walked directly into a lamppost, Barry will look at me for a long time, sigh, then say "If YOU are in the top 5% of the country, then i have serious concerns about the future of the UK"

Happy Birthday

I'm bored.

Like really really bored, i've been feeling like this for the past two or three weeks. Nothing exciting has happened. I'd been looking forward to half term for ages and it wasn't that great.

It's not that i don't have enough to do, i have so much to do. I don't really have time to be writing this even, i do at least one thing everyday after school and almost every lunchtime in school. Then there's the extraordinary amount of homework and revision i've got, but i'm still feeling so completely useless.

I don't know... bored with life just sounds so dramatic and miserable, pretentious teenagerish... oh. um... yeah... moving swiftly on...

I'm just bored with what my life is at this moment.

I need something ELSE to do. But i don't really have much time. Every free moment i have recently seems to have been spent talking to the cat or drawing pictures of squirrels (yes, i've drawn a worrying amount of these).

There was a time, just under a year ago when twitter took up an awful lot of my brain space, arguably too much -i still like it, but it's not quite as good anymore, it really upsets me that some people don't talk to eachother anymore and some people have left twitter completely and some people i used to talk to loads have unfollowed me.

But I'm not just writing this to complain - and if i were you reading this i'd probably want to hit me for being selfish and stupid - no, i want your advice: I need something else to use up all the spare corners of my brain. Another hobby or something, something that doesn't take too much time and something that won't cause me to hate myself if i fail at it. something that helps someone else...? Or something that would be incredibly useful in my future...? Anything.

This Terrified Look...

Parents evening. The most dreaded evening of the year?

The one time when the people who boss you about and constantly tell you you're not good enough at school meet those who boss you about and constantly tell you you're not good enough at home.

Teachers have 5 minutes to sum up a whole year of hard work and not so hard work and too short skirts and make-up and too much talking and not enough talking and staring into space and missing maths books and "disappointing" test scores and non existent pieces of homework and "target minimum grades"... how are you supposed to express all that in 5 minutes?! actually... i'll take that back, i've managed to express it all in 1 paragraph.

However, i have learnt that most teachers chose to ignore these subjects completely, instead they like to bring up "issues" that really, don't need to be brought up in front of my parents. They just do it because they assume you aren't going to shout at them and leave the room when you're sitting next to your parents. Cowardly Idiots.

Our first appointment was with my Latin teacher, Miss C who is so delightfully mental, i
think probably deserves a blogpost of her own. Well today she suggested i learn Romanian... ?!! i'm having enough trouble with Spanish and French and Latin as it is thank you... i don't know any Romanian people. i'm not even that sure where Romania is?...

oh. there it is.



anyway, where was i?

Oh yes.

There did seem to be a "theme" running through all of the teacher's opinions of me.

"this terrified look"...

"she sits there silently, looking completely terrified or staring into space."

At least 3 of my teachers said those EXACT words.

Maybe the staring into space bit is true, and the silent bit. But i don't look terrified, this is my normal facial expression. Do i look permanently petrified?

Also, i am pretty sure a teacher shouldn't describe a student as "a panicky little bundle of nerves". Even if it IS true...

Another thing i learnt today is that my English teacher actually spies on me. He mentioned a conversation he overheard me having with my friend at the train station yesterday morning. He really shouldn't have been listening should he?

I'm not going to complain though, he was one of the two teachers who said something vaguely nice about me. He said i was the best student in year 9 with A-level knowledge of English. And that was the first time my mother has been proud of me in about 3 years. And that was nice.

Was there a point to this blog? Have i made it yet? Who knows...

Strange Men (again)

If you've followed me on Twitter for a while, or if you know me in real life, you'll probably know that it doesn't take a lot to scare me/make me very very paranoid.

Last Saturday i was standing outside Waitrose in Lymington, waiting for my parents to finish shopping. I was listening to my iPod, staring into space and trying not to notice how cold it was (i'd been an idiot and not worn a coat).

I watch a man come out of the shop, stare at me then disappear back into Waitrose. This was weird, but i forgot about it, he probably forgot something and was staring at me in a sort of "she must be mad, she's not wearing a coat, she'll probably get pneumonia and die" sort of way.

Then, about 10 minutes later, the man comes back out of the shop, hands me a bunch of pretty white flowers and says "these are because you're so beautiful" then quickly walks away.

Is there anything much more terrifying than that?? I was scared and embarrassed, apparently i went red. I never go red, not when i'm embarrassed, not when i've run 1500m, never! The last time my face was any colour other than it's normal pale yellowish, i had scarlet fever.

My parents thought it was hilarious, i didn't.

WHY?! i'm most definitely not beautiful (i'm actually having problems spelling beautiful - that's right... yes?) i'm not going to say i'm ugly because i'm scared about getting hit round the face with a dead fish. But i am.

The man was about 40... he was with his wife! (i assume she was his wife).

Why did he do that?? Is he some sort of mental person? Was is a cruel joke? Is he a spy?!

The flowers were pretty though.

Most of them have died now, but i've put the still alive ones in an improvised "vase".




I'm not complaining. I just want answers.

GCSEs and knickers and drugs and stuff

The things that have mainly been in my brain today -

GCSEs
Knickers
Drugs.

I shall explain.

I started the day in a rather worrying way. Woke up with an awful headache, took what i thought was paracetamol, only it wasn't - twas co-codamol. Which my mother was given when she fractured her back (just to give you an idea of how strong they are).

After realising my mistake, i didn't want to concern my parents, so i told twitter. Lovely twitter, who then went on telling me things like "eat something sugary!", "drink loads of water!" and my favourite - "i did that once, i was in hospital for weeks!". yeah... thanks for that.

I ignored all of you. I went to school and tried to forget about it. This didn't last for long as i soon found myself running to the toilets to be sick... My lovely friends standing behind me, looking slightly horrified and asking me if i am pregnant.

I soon got over all of that and despite my friends' best efforts, refused to go home (the lady in the office hates me - i avoid her at all costs).

I fell asleep in Geography. Nobody woke me.

At break i ate a bread roll and a banana yoghurt and then felt completely better. And my headache had gone!

Knickers. Today in school, i looked over at my friend Nancy, she looked uncomfortable.

"are you ok?" says i

"no, i'm far too hot."

"but it's cold in here?!"

"i'm wearing far too many clothes... (i have 4 pairs of knickers on)"

After nearly wetting myself laughing, i asked her why,

"because of the snow. THE SNOW"

"take your jumper off then... and maybe one or two pair of pants?"

"ok."

when i said that, i didn't expect her to do it then and there. in our English lesson.

A talent that all girls i know have is the ability to take items of clothing off in completely the wrong order. So i wasn't THAT surprised.

However, i was surprised when minutes later, Nancy looked at me again,

"Stephanie, what do i do with these pairs of knickers?"

"Erm... put them in your pocket?"

"don't have a pocket."

"pencil case."

"don't have a pencil case.

*silence*

can i put them in your pencil case?"

"NO!".

I don't know how she managed it, but next lesson i went to get my pen out and found 2 pairs of Nancy's knickers.

My pencil case has been contaminated.

And finally... GCSEs. This isn't amusing at all. not one little bit. It's terrifying.

I have to know what i want to study for GCSEs by next week and it seems that EVERYONE i speak to has their own idea of what i should do.

I'm so confused.

So you have to do English, English lit. IT, RS and Maths and double science.

I have to do Engineering (counts for 2 GCSEs) and Latin.

Then i have 3 to choose. Anything i like...

I'd decided on French, Art and Music.

But my mother has decided that i have to do history.

So it was French, Art and history.

But then my piano teacher decided i have to do music.

So it was French, history and music.

But then my father has told me he wants me to do art.

So it was Art, history and music.

But now EVERYONE is telling me that it's useful to learn a language.

I'm so confused. I'm doing 13 GCSEs as it is. Now my parents are trying to arrange for me to do the ones i want to do but can't do in school, out of school. My little head is going to explode. very soon.

Turtles and Sticky Situations

"Behold the turtle; he only makes progress when he sticks his neck out"

That's what my calendar is telling me today. I may have said before, but my calendar is one of the smartest people i know. Everyday, he shares a little of his wisdom as well as an interesting fact that always makes me go "Oh! i NEVER knew that!". For example, did you know that today in 1977, Queen Elizabeth II visited Northern Ireland for the first time in 11 years? I bet you didn't know that, did you? Once you have a lovely little fact like that, you can use it in conversation, not only does it impress people but it sometimes baffles them (to your advantage), it is also a very very good awkward silence filler. I know, it's a lot to take in, so i'll give you some examples:

Eg. 1

(there was some conversation before this - it would be weird otherwise)

..."Yes, my dog used to do that all the time when he was a puppy"

"Oh, that's nice, what's your dog called?"

"Francis... He's dead now."

"I'm very sorry to hear that!"

"It's ok, he was a horrible little thing so i shot him."

*very long and awkward silence*

You: "Did you know that today in 1977, Queen Elizabeth II visited Northern Ireland for the first time in 11 years?"

Eg. 2

"Stephanie, you STILL haven't found your maths book?"

"erm... no"

"have you even looked for it?"

"err...well... did you know that today in 1977, Queen Elizabeth II visited Northern Ireland for the first time in 11 years?"

"really, i NEVER knew that!"

See, my random facts have got me out of many a sticky situation.

Anyway, my point is (yes, this does actually have a point)... i like my calendar very very much. where did i get it? i stole it from my father's desk. which proves that stealing is probably a good thing.

(actually, that wasn't my point, i went to eat dinner just after i wrote "i like my calendar very..." and when i came back, i'd completely forgotten what i was going to say)

also, do you like that turtle picture? he's called George, he's 70 and lives in Ras Mohammed. i met him, he's awfully nice :)