'When I grow up...'

When were little the world is our oyster, we can decide to be whatever we want to be and not worry about it. Whether it be Actress , Teacher, Astronaut, Train Driver, bin man (if your my mother) or even a nurse that drives a tank (That one I have to admit is me, but points if you can guess who everyone else's is).

It wasn't until I was a little bit older (about 3) and not sat on a soldiers lap at an army base open day that I decided I wanted to be a writer. Sadly three year old's aren't the best at pronunciation and I asked my mum if I could become an orphan. Mother promptly replied 'Well that can be arranged' with only the slightest snigger. Thankfully even a three year old me realised that wasn't the right answer. 'No mummy I want to write books'

Seems to me I haven't stopped writing since. Some dreams change, the 'actress' is now studying biology and the 'astronaut' studies rocks and pots. I think the 'train driver' still wishes he could be at times, but lord knows my mum really doesn't want to be a bin man any more!

It get's me thinking about what's possible, the 'teacher' is bang on course to get what they want. My dream as a writer seems clearer studying writer but others won't be so lucky.

If I hadn't been brought up so stringently by my mother I could easily have ended up a teenage mum or lacking A levels like so many girls all over the country.

I guess the difference between me and them is I have the inspiration and the determination, and my mum kicking my ass the whole way. 'Have you brushed your teeth?' 'Do your homework' 'Always use a condom!!' (usually followed by a loud squealing as I hide under the duvet trying not to hear her).

Thanks mum :) and to all those who wanted to be Astronauts , ballerinas or fireman rock on! Our dreams may change as we get older but I still get to giggle at the idea of Kat tearing off her spaceman helmet and moaning its messed up her hair!

Tea Time Tantrums

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!!

Sometimes I really hate cooking, like this evening for instance trying to cook sausages and failing miserably. Despite the fact 80% of the split sausages was a very crispy black, I still somehow managed to miss that crucial 20% until everything was smothered in ketchup and part of that crucial first bite.

It's safe to say I won't be going any where near sausages for a while. It's times like this I wish I had someone around to hand me a cup of tea and then whip up something fabulous for me to munch before I disappear all together. Heck I would even settle for my mum's cooking.

Now would normally be the time I fall on the bread and eat my own weight in toast but I've run out! :(

It seems the food god's have turned against me. I may have to settle for gnawing on my own elbow or worse brave the kitchen again in search of something nutritional.

Or I could always go back to bed....

Future House mates and funny smells

I was out tonight, just as well really as for some unknown reason the flat has started smelling like cat food and that's enough to put anyone off their food. We have yet to figure out the cause of such stagnant scent but hopefully we will get to the bottom of it soon as it reeks!

So yes I was out with my future house mates tonight! I'm going to miss my boys something rotten (yes even you Kish you perv!) but it's going to make a nice change to be living in a house full of women! We did nothing but giggle all evening. Well that and ooo over Yasmine's Skort.

A very clever invention! It looked exactly like a skirt but with all the dignity of shorts for when you fall over! I'm now seriously debating investing in one, see how useful it is having girls about!

Seems like our house is going to be a bit mad, were already planning a mexican night with fajhitas, tacos, nachos and tequila!! woop.

We definately have to go out again soon and this time Amara needs to remember her ID! Having to sweet talk the bouncers is interesting but probably not something that should be tried too often. Watching Yasmine grapple with the waiting staff for a tomatoe and a mushroom was also highly entertaining especially by the time she needed to ask for a steak knife they were probably extremely sick of us!

But mostly I'm glad that I've landed in with such a good bunch to live with next year. I was quite worried about it but it looks like it's worked out quite well! Now just to find a house :)

Pretty Piece of Prose

Ok so after spending all day with my head in other peoples books, I thought it was about time I shared some of my own.

So here's the prologue of a book me and the lovely Kirsty King started working on during secondary school. Here's the prologue of Wayward High a book set in a 1960's boarding school thats just a little bit chaotic...

Prologue

The Appointment of Mr T

Mr Stubbs was sitting at the Headmasters desk of the prestigious Devon School Wayton Meer. He was having trouble with deciding which biscuit he preferred. The summer holidays where his favourite time of the school year as he got some peace and quiet; a rare luxury when the students where back. He decided on the digestive and proceeded to open the packet. He was just about to dip one into his very English cup of tea when he was interrupted by his secretary ringing through to him.

Grumbling, while attempting to rescue his biscuit from the bottom of his tea, he answered the phone.

“Sir, sorry to disturb you but there are 15 candidates for the open teaching position clogging up my office. I’ve got your daughters school on the phone telling me that Delilah will not be allowed to return next year due to an incident concerning Delilah, several first years and a lot of L.S.D. also sir, the coffee machine is still broken and Ruby is coming into talk to you about the epidemic from last year.”

Groaning and giving up any hope of the survival of the biscuit, Mr Stubbs shoved his tea to one side which promptly fell off the edge of his desk, staining his favourite rug and revealing the soggy lump that had until very recently been a digestive biscuit.

The door opened and without looking up Mr Stubbs said “look you’ve got the job now go away and tell the others to leave me alone,” casting a woeful look at his now hopelessly stained and completely ruined rug. Mrs Smiles was going to kill him.

“Sorry to interrupt but I do believe I’m already in your employ,”

Mr Stubbs looked up slowly to see the face of Ruby the school’s matron staring at him with a bemused look on her face.

“Oh, err… Ruby, how nice to see you, could we re-arrange this meeting for another time, I have very pressing issues to attend to.”

“Fine but don’t blame me when we have another outbreak of vomiting all over your carpets” sniffed Ruby who turned and walked out the room with a swish of her matron’s apron.

Rolling his eyes Mr Stubbs returned to his packet of biscuits when there was another knock on the door stopping him with his hand suspended over an invisible cup of tea. Groaning and giving up the fight for a biscuit he sat up straight in his chair and answered.

“Enter”

The door opened with a creak and a young man in his late 20’s stood tall in the door way wearing a dark suite with a pale green shirt which accentuated his piercing green eyes.

“Mr Stubbs? I’m Matthew Tilstone; I’m here about the open teaching position. I think I’d make the best teacher as teenagers are my speciality, there is nothing these kids can throw at me that I can’t handle.”

This caused Mr Stubbs to be rather taken aback, thinking something along the lines of “oh yeah, wait till you meet 3B!”

END PROLOGUE

The C word...Chocolate

Milk, white or dark, it's all fabulous.

All over the world Chocolate is celebrated for A)being severely yummy and B) by most men for keeping their girlfriends and wives sane through raging hormones.

Part of general girl code states that the minute a former relationship turns into your best friend screaming 'God he was such a waaaaanker!!! *cue crying*' then you are to descend with tissues and innumerable tubes of ice cream and a veritable hoard of chocolate.

It has always been said that Chocolate makes you feel better (at least that's my excuse I'm pretty sure I'm just a pig) but I always just thought it was some vaguely sciencey excuse used by woman to satisfy their cravings but apparently not.

There are in fact Endorphins in chocolate, 'happy hormones' as it were that do actually make us feel good (which is so going to be depleted once you step on the scales and realise just how much of that chocolate has landed on your ass).

In fact it would seem that there is something hard wired in our brain craving this wonder food. The royal college of psychiatry actually did a study on Chocolate cravings in the manically depressed. It would seem that out of the participants who listed cravings as one of their depressive symptoms the vast majority chose Chocolate with only 10% choosing another food (must admit I'm normally an Icecream girl myself)

Interestingly it was also a female majority that favoured the chocolate. Alex says its probably because we are all overtly hormonal (now who's generalising :P), who know's maybe we are more susceptible as women to 'happy hormones' probably just as well with all we have to put up with (men!)

Maybe I'm not a pig after all yaaaaaay!!

(The study for anyone interested was 'Chocolate craving when depressed: a personaliy marker by GORDON PARKER, MD, PhD, DSc and JOANNA CRAWFORD, BPsych. The link http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/191/4/351)

The grass is always greener....when its not in london

It was gloriously sunny again today, I didn't even need my jacket! It would seem that summer is finally on its way. I just wish the grass was.

The university of east London is still a fairly new campus (opened in 2000) and it seems to me they over did it with the concrete. For a uni in quite a pretty setting next to the river (if you ignore the huge airport) it seems ludicrous that they don't have more greenery.

What little green there is, is so little and puny it's hardly worth bothering about. You just know your a country gal when your on the phone to your best friend complaining about how the grass is crap.

The only bit of decent sized not crap grass has been cordoned off with a silly wooden + wire fence!!! Are they trying to drive me round the bend? When it's sunny I love to lie outside with a book on grass, can't lie on the concrete people give you weird looks and then you start to cook.

I eventually found out what it had been cordoned off. Last summer apparently the students killed it by being on it constantly.

Can't help but think at least it was getting used! Where are wire cutters??...

Blood, gut's and pants

As I'm lent over the bathroom sink, I really try not to think about the red liquid streaming from my nose. Even just the smell is making my stomach heave.

Ok so you got me, I can't stand blood. Well more specifically my own blood. There's just something about it that makes my skin crawl. I can only just about donate blood. Watching it shoot down the tube (because sorry you just can't look away) into the baggies beneath the bed makes me so light headed I've nearly fainted a couple of times. The nurses thought I was ill, no just a big pansy.

Other peoples blood is not an issue, Kat and Alex have bled on me often enough to know that. and with a mother who is a nurse you just kind of get used to it I suppose.

But still nosebleeds are like my own personal hell. I'm bleeding, I can smell it and worse yet I can taste it as it trys to trickle down the back of throat.

Even once you spit it out it doesn't get better because then you have to look at it, bright red against the white of the sink. And trust me you don't get any flatmate brownie points for besplattering the bathroom in red.

Kishan seemed to find it quite funny though when I finally made my way to the kithchen to get a drink with a huge wad of paper up my nose.

'Tip your head back!' he said. Thankfully Ella chose that moment to appear coming to check up on me.

'Er no just no'

Thank goodness some one has got some sense around here I can tell you. Seeing Ella also made me realise something else. Once again we were all in our pants. Well except Ella who had joggers on.

Seems me and Kishan have become victims to 'flat chic' in the evenings. Trousers are obviously just over done.

Urgh I need more tissue....