What I'm Doing With My Unemployment...

I'm having a bit of a dull fortnight to be honest, nothing really interesting is going on in my life and so finding fun stuff to blog about it is a bit like panning for gold in a murky river-sometimes you get a glittering nugget of inspiration but most of the time it's just stones and mud. I'm so bored of late, nothing at all is happening to me-today I shaved my legs to give me something to do (I wish that was an exaggeration...) and the only reason I had to get up and get dressed (a dentists appointment) got cancelled before I'd even properly got out of bed. Another pyjama day, then.

In a bid to remind myself that life is fun, and also because a good friend of mine is pressuring me to write more blogs so she can read them as procrastination (Love you really AC ;) ) I'm going to tell you the fun stuff I'm doing with my unemployment and dole money.

-Bass Guitar
I found a Groupon for music lessons in September last year and bought it practically on impulse. I didn't really know what I wanted to do with it, I just wanted to do something. I opted for bass guitar, because it's a little different to standard guitar lessons, and because that way my Dad (who has been playing guitar since his teens) can't interfere too much. I begged my parents for a bass for Christmas, found one that I totally fell in love with, and was so lucky to find her wrapped up under my tree.

A friend told me to take a picture "rocking out"
so I did! </highlyselfabsorbedphoto>

Now she's not perfect-she isn't an expensive bass, and her strings need a bit of jiggering about with to get her sound right, but I love her. She's beautiful and lovely, and sounds reallyreally good. The only downside is that I can't afford lessons at the moment, but I'm going to ask for some birthday money to put towards them because I really want to get back to playing-I really like having something that's totally mine, that I chose to do completely as a whim and with no other influences.

-Swing Dancing
Technically, I haven't started this yet, but I've bought a block of 10 lessons, again on Groupon, because I've wanted to learn to swing dance ever since I went to a taster session at uni in my first year. Why I didn't join the society I don't know, but for whatever reason I didn't, so when I saw them crop up on Groupon, and after a quick Facebook consultation* I bought them for myself. I'm quite excited to get started! (Note to self...ring up and book!) I'm also hoping this will help make me a little fitter/healthier, just because I'm unemployed doesn't mean I can't look after myself, right?

-Pen Pals
I don't know about you but I really like getting nice things in the post. In a fit of boredom and insomnia one early morning I googled 'pen pal sites' just to see what would turn up. There was a surprising number but the one I liked the look of most was this one-http://lettersandgifts.tumblr.com/ -where you can create a short bio for yourself and leave your email address for people to get back to you. I got quite a few responses from mine-and now have four lovely pen pals from around the world! (Two in the States, one in Brazil and one in Italy) It's just really pleasant to be able to sit and write letters to people that I don't know at all on thick, creamy paper and in a fountain pen and it's also really nice reading about them too!

I dunno, it feels old fashioned and quaint and really quite nice, like a throw back to another time. I think that's why I love it, in this world of smart phones and twitter/Facebook and technology that allows us to keep in touch with people 24/7 I quite like the fact that you have to post a letter than wait weeks for a reply, it feels like you're slowing life down a little. I don't even know what any of these people look like yet, it's a tiny bit magic =)

-PostCrossing
At the same time I discovered my pen pal site, I discovered PostCrossing. A bit like my (failed!) attempt at sending postcards out to my followers, the premise is fairly simple-you get an address and send a post card to it. When the person receives that postcard, they register it on the site and then your address gets moved to the top of the list for people to send one to. So it's not quite like having a pen pal because you get postcards back from someone you've never sent one to, and so forth-it's really quite fun. I so far have received 16
postcards from all around the world and also sent lots everywhere too!

Please excuse the peculiar angle, this is a
wall on my stairs and really hard to
photograph!

I've had to limit myself to only sending 5 postcards a month though, because otherwise it gets quite expensive, but none the less it's still awesome. I've even gained a blog follower or two from it (hello!) so it's reaching further than just pretty things landing on my doormat =)

So there you go. I mean that's obviously not everything I'm doing with my free time, I spent a lot of time on the internet, I read a lot and I visit my friends/get them to visit me when I can. It's definitely not all bad, but recently I've noticed that time seems to be slowing down, making days last years because I have nothing to do in them but search and apply for endless jobs that I'm not even qualified for anyway. It's got to that stage of boredom, where you resort to tidying your room because it's something that fills a couple of hours.

I am, however, glad for the little things, the moments of fun, for every time I get something mildly exciting in the post and for every time someone makes me laugh by talking to me on Facebook, even for 5 minutes.

Right, so that's this post done, now what to do next?..

-Jenni-


*with answers that ranged from "Yes, then I'll have someone I can swing dance with" to "There will be menfolk there Jenni"-my friends know me well...

30 Posts of Truth-Part 8

8. Someone Who Made Your Life Hell

(or treated you like shit)

When I first saw this list of truths I knew exactly who I'd be writing this post about-my first and second year housemate at university. For the sake of anonymity I'm not going to reveal her name, but I'll give her a pseudonym to save overuse of pronouns. Let's call her Tracey, because I don't actually know any Traceys so I hope I won't cause offence to anyone reading this. 

Now Tracey was the first housemate I met when I moved into my flat and she seemed nice enough-she jumped up from her room to shake my hand and helped me and my Dad bring my stuff up from the car. For the first few weeks of term we got on well enough, we went out together (as is practically required) in Fresher's week, we sat on the floor of our kitchen (we didn't have a living room) with our other housemates and found out all the interesting personal details about each other's sex lives, we generally rubbed along, whilst of course getting used to being away from home and in the big scary world of university. 

All the people that lived in our flat (plus two others) signed for a house together in the November, so I was obviously still getting along with her well enough by this point. I can't really remember at which point that changed, nor why it happened-truth be told I think I've blocked a lot of memories out of those two years because I can't remember much of it at all, and to be honest, I'm kinda grateful for that.

Maybe it's because we both had quite strong personalities-we both were vying for the "top dog" position I guess. Tracey was also one of those people who had to have the better story than you-no matter what situation you were in she had it worse/better. I can remember one incident where I, having not received any Student Finance at all at this point was very stressfully eeking out my £500 overdraft to last me the term. Tracey came into my room and complained at me for about half an hour that it was so unfair that her mum wanted to get remarried because if that happened  she would lose about a grand a year in loans. This from the same girl who was constantly telling us she would probably come out of university with no debt. From a girl from a fairly affluent family, who received full student loans because she lived with her mum, a single parent, but who also got money from her Dad plus two bursaries from the university for being there.
It's no exaggeration at all if I tell you that Tracey was the most self-centred person I have ever met. She basically thought the world revolved around her and if you contradicted that view then you were unequivocally wrong. She just made it very difficult for me to actually like her very much.

Fast forward to my second year, through the summer that I had spent dreading my return to uni, because I knew it meant returning to sharing a house with her. My stress levels were so high that I was probably an awful person to live with too, because I couldn't cope with the little un-important things because I was already at a level where everything caused me anguish. There were 6 of us in this house-me, Tracey and four others. At the start of the year it was just me that had problems with Tracey, and I had put it down to an epic personality clash between us or something. By the end of the year there were 5 of us left living in the house, and only one of them was still left talking to Tracey. She'd turned even the most easy going of people against her, someone who would go out of her way to be nice to everyone and always tried to understand things from the other person's point of view, so it can't have just been in my head. 

I don't remember any arguments though, that's the weird thing. I remember passive-aggressive Facebook updates (hers) and passive-aggressive notes (mine) but I don't remember any big blazing fall outs. All I know is that the situation devolved to the point where I ended up having to take special circumstances for my second year summer exams, so that I could retake them when not under the hugely stressful influence that was living with Tracey. That when my friend offered me a room in the house she had already signed for with 6 other people I'd never met before in the January of that year I took her up on that offer like she was throwing me a life boat as I was drowning. In a way, she truly was. 

As I said, it's weird, I don't really remember what caused it all, if it was any one thing. There are a few incidents that will stick in my mind forever-one that I shall refer to only as the Sugar Glider Incident *shudder* but I think overall I just couldn't tolerate someone who was that set on making all around her feel inferior. She had to show you that everything she had was better than whatever you had-her relationship, her grades, her life. She must have been desperately insecure but I can't feel sorry for her because she was just so horrendous to live with. She definitely made my life hell for a while, but thankfully I haven't seen her since the day she moved out for good (leaving her bedroom such a horrendous mess that we lost some of our deposit to have it cleaned professionally...) and have no intention of ever going back to resolve any of the issues between us. 

Actually, no, that's a lie. I did see her, the other day in a pub in Sheffield. She saw me at the exact same time...and then we both pretended we hadn't noticed a thing and carried on with our lives. And that is EXACTLY how I like it.

So long Tracey, I don't miss you.

-Jenni-

Five Minute Friday-Song

At the moment I keep getting stuck on a single song that I feel the need to play over and over again. The other day it was 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' by Bonnie Tyler-I just kept playing it on repeat and singing along ALL DAY. Then came the turn of 'Let’s Fall In Love' by Ella Fitzgerald-again it got put on repeat and I couldn't stop singing it. More recently when I was feeling miserable it was Poison's 'Every Rose Has Its Thorn'* because it has words that I can relate to almost too well. I don't know why I keep getting taken over with the urge to listen to only one song for an entire day, but it keeps happening, so I just go with it.

I love singing, I've always sung things-whether it's bursting into song because someone said a phrase that's also a song lyric or just generally singing along to my music late at night so my parents come and tell me off because they can hear me downstairs. It's probably annoying as hell if you're one of my friends and I interrupt our conversation with random music, but I love it. It always makes me sad when I have a cold because I can't sing all the time. I'm not really a very musical person-I don't have (as my bass tutor put it) an internal metronome and I couldn't tell you what a note was if someone played it to me if I tried. But song lyrics stay with me forever-once I've learned them, whether it was for a show or just by listening to them on repeat hundreds of times, I know them for good. I might not get the tune spot on but I will know the words!

Source: Open Clip Art Library

I am someone who connects to songs completely-there's so many songs that speak to me, and have done throughout my life. Whatever the situation, whether I'm feeling happy or sad, there's a song lyric that reflects this. Songs that make me cry, songs that make me happy, songs that just make me go “YES. This person understands.” I love them all! In a way I collect them-I remember | all the songs that have held significance to me over the years, even if they don't any more. There's songs that will always remind me of people and will invoke memories in me, both happy and sad. There's songs that I can't listen to any more without giggling because me and a friend have either turned them into a personal joke, or misheard the lyrics, or just had a good time whilst they was playing. Similarly, there's songs which I actively avoid listening to because I know they'll just make me feel upset. I guess I have a kind of Pavlovian response to songs-they will always make me feel the same emotions that I have subconsciously attached to them as when I first discovered them. I wouldn't change it though, wouldn't go back and have those lyrics mean nothing to me again, because they're all significant for so many reasons, so many events in my life. My songs are important to me, and always will have a hold over me, and I wouldn't be without that for anything.

-Jenni-

*My music taste is nothing if not eclectic!

| denotes where my 5 minute alarm went off

For more details about Five Minute Fridays or to read more entries/take part yourself, visit http://lisajobaker.com/five-minute-friday/

To read more of my 5MF pieces, click here.

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Letters to Mr. Nobody

[Source-Muffet on Flickr]

When I was with my first boyfriend, I developed a (bad) habit of writing him letters telling him all the things I couldn't bring myself to say to him because I was scared of the consequences (namely that I couldn't bear the thought that he might break up with me...again). I'd pour my heart out into those letters, smudging the ink with my tears (disadvantage of using fountain pens, right there) and telling him all the reasons he was making me unhappy and then...I'd never send them. I probably still have those notebooks full of my misery, full of letters that were never read by the person whose name they bore-he probably doesn't even know now how much I cried over him, over a relationship which I can now see (ah hindsight!) was already doomed to fail. Not even the strongest of bonds between people could be maintained with that wealth of unsaid words between them, and ours was certainly not what you would call a strong bond!

Why did I write the letters if I was never going to send them, I hear you ask? (I do, honest...) I guess I thought that if I could just get the feelings out onto paper, to feel the pain and cry the tears then I wouldn't feel them any more, that they wouldn't affect me when I was with him, that they wouldn't matter. Of course, that's nonsense-feelings don't go away because you took them out of your head and wrote them down, they still persist if you never speak to the appropriate person about them, unless you tell them that they're making you unhappy.

I tried harder with BoyfriendII to actually talk about stuff that was upsetting me, and for the most part it seemed to work much better-we had more arguments than me and BFI but felt like we tried to resolve them instead of pretending we didn't have problems and that our relationship was perfect. I stopped writing my feelings down as often, and when I did I showed him them-so we could discuss it and try to work through it. I felt like this was the much more mature and rational response to having a problem than just trying to hide it away from everyone and I guess it was really-airing grievances and all that, rather than leaving them to fester away in a drawer somewhere, niggling away at the back of my mind. Every sensible Discworld fan knows that words have powers of their own.

[Source-Open Clip Art Library]

I thought I'd left my letter writing habit behind me, more or less, but I recently seem to have fallen back into old habits. It's just easier to confess things to a reassuringly blank page than to tell someone something that might change the way they see you, or lead to judgement and condemnation. It's not just letters now, it seems, but blog posts too-I write them and never publish them for fear of revealing too much of myself and then never being able to go back to a point where it's not been read. I've got a letter full of emotions just itching to be sent, but I don't think I'll do it. I don't know if I can, or even if I should. I'm too hung up on the idea that telling people how I really feel just gives me nothing more than a million reasons to end up regretting it. I can't dissuade myself that revealing my emotions means that something will hurt me more than the contents of the letter ever would, that will make me wish I'd kept it safely tucked away in the dark with the rest of them.
Realistically I know that it's just a letter. A letter with some feelings in. Its something that by its very nature should be shared, should be read, a story that isn't told until seen with different eyes. Realistically I know that it won't make my world end, and that I really should just post the damn thing, if only as a way to get over the silly idea that the way someone reacts to something I have to tell them will just end up hurting me more, to get past the idea that feelings sometimes should be hoarded more closely than a dragon and its treasure.
Realistically, I know all this. Emotionally/Sub-consciously though? I'm not so sure.

What do you reckon?

-Jenni-

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30 Posts of Truth-Part 7

7. Someone Who Has Made Your Life Worth Living

There are lots of people I could have mentioned for this because there are lots of people who have, one way or another, done something amazing for me that I really needed at the time. Some of them have been there for the big things, some for the small things but they've all been there for me and I'm very grateful for all of them. But there is one person who I feel I should mention above all others and that's my best friend Rara.

Rara has been my best friend for all of my life, and I realise I'm incredibly lucky because not everyone has someone awesome in their life that long. She's known me every day of my life (she's 3 months older than me so not every day of hers!) and I've known her every day of it-our mums are best friends too. As I tried to explain it to someone the other day-it's like when you have a brother or sister. You can never go back to a point where you don't have a sibling, and they'll always be someone you're inexorably linked to-I'm like that with Rara. She's my constant-no matter where I live she'll be my bestie and provide me with endless endless giggles. Every time we get together we laugh ourselves silly for one reason or another, and we have so many in-jokes between us that it's almost like we're talking in code. We went for a photoshoot together in December (thank you Wowcher!) and the photographer even commented how we were a proper double act. We got him laughing pretty hard too!

She's my perfect bed partner and doesn't wake up even if I get out of bed (and clamber over her in the process), we go on holiday together and bicker like an old married couple and we always text each other when one of us does a stupid thing that'll make the other one laugh. We have a million memories between us (most of which she can't remember at all =p) and they all make us grin like loons. When I told her I couldn't ever find her on Facebook because I always searched for 'Rara' she added it into her name to make life easier for me. We go on adventures and day trips and have sleepovers and giggle til our sides hurt. She's the other piece of my jigsaw and I love her to pieces.

She's made my life worth living just because I can't imagine what it would have been like (BORING) without her in it.

I loft thee, Razziepants!

-JB-

This bit's just for you, hope it makes you gibbon:

-Ungh Ungh-Fleckle Fleckle Fleckle-Can I put my finger in your moth?-Every day on a regular basis-I wear goggles when you are not there-sneezing and farting-"I'll put in on Macro...Where's it GONE?-MUSHROOM-Bit nits-Baps and cream, baps, baps and cream-Mummy B's turning into a turkey!-You know the quality street wrappers? I put them on my face!-Clubfoot and Strokeface-Cabbages? Cabbafges? Cabbamfges?-That had lumps in but I swallowed it anyway-Colosseum?-I can see your badger-Whisking and sieving-I left boob behind the cat-

We are such wrdidpoos =D

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