Dinner with the family and boyfriend...

...was thankfully not awkward. My boyfriend has got to be the least awkward person alive. My parents are not used to being in the company of a boyfriend and so I was dreading awkward silences in the fairly quiet restaurant. However, it was the exact opposite, it was a laid back, idyllic, funny time (apart from my dad's embarrassingly crap jokes that made you imagine tumble weeds float across the table - only once though). We all had a great time. The cinema afterwards (a typical outing...) was good but I felt like a bit of an immature teenager when we decided that we wanted to sit at the back of the cinema, well away from my parents and little sister, who was at this time, giving me the raised eyebrows and pursed lips saying, "What are you two going to be doing?" No, it wasn't like that, it was more just being together, just us two. It feels so right. I know I'm young to say what I want to say... so I won't say it unless it jinxes anything.

Although... my neighbours are an example that the kind of thing that I want to happen but will not say, of it working out alright. They dated for 2 weeks and then he proposed. She accepted. They were 16. They got married at 17. They had their first child when they were 18. Then a year later, a second child. They are now nearly 60 and still deeply in love with each other.

All I am going to say is... I really, really, really hope. Every time I see him, I get a shock how happy he makes me and how dream like and idyllic our lives are when we are together. I can not imagine myself with anyone else. I tell my mother almost everything about us, tiny little things that he says or does. To anyone reading this, you are most likely thinking, ah dear, another infatuated teenager who thinks he's 'The One' and she's getting too serious about something that won't last. She'll get upset when it ends... blah blah blah. As I say, I am hoping. It's impossible not to think of him in that way. I am not going to start describing him because... I would either go on forever or just sit here thinking of where the hell to start.

He told me that night that I looked "beyond words" and that he "fell deeper in love with me". That is something that I can not describe with any language known to man (and unknown) how that makes me feel.

The Craving of Chocolate

My father has just arrived home from a hard day's work. He leaves the house at 7:30am or before every single morning as an agricultural contractor. He arrives home at 7:30pm tonight (very early for him) and strolls in to the kitchen with his cap and work clothes one (a bit like Lenny or George from "Of Mice and Men) and flings his bag on the kitchen floor and scans the kitchen for his dinner. He spots it on his place mat on the table and bungs it in the microwave. He puts it in too long, as always, and the fish explodes. He guffaws as he reveals the pinky coloured mess inside and tells my mother like a child that has just wrote his or her name for the first time. He sits down and devours the meal like it is his last. No hesitation, he searches for something sweet to finish him off. He looks in the fridge and takes nibbles of a bit of everything. He then looks in the cupboard and then spots some chocolate chipped mini muffins and eats them one after the other whole. He glugs his tea noisily and says to me, "you know what I fancy?" I answer, "what?", he replies with, "some chocolate..."

In my head, I'm thinking, wow, is he not full yet? But I say, "well, you know, Easter is tomorrow! You can gorge yourself with Easter eggs. That's what I'm doing anyway...". He smiles and tells my mother that he wants some chocolate. Those of you who are reading this probably think that there is something wrong with my father, there's not. He's even more like Lenny from "Of Mice and Men" here. Anyway, my mother says no and to wait and so my father reluctantly accepts and heads upstairs to watch television for the night. However, half way up the stairs, my mother calls him to help her carry something heavy out in the garden. He says, "Okay, that means I can have some chocolate then.". Later this evening, he will return downstairs for his supper and immediately afterwards, will go back upstairs for more television and then go to bed.

Meanwhile, I am sitting studying in the kitchen, smirking at my father's childlike behavior. He walks past my with half a Creme Egg in his mouth and stomping through to help my mother outside.


I hope I can keep my inner child as at hand as my father's but he is just far too extreme at times...

Time

This academic year has gone by like it is on fast forward. I've almost finished my penultimate year of school. I remember in my first year thinking, "Ugh! 6 more years, you've got to be kidding me...". Now suddenly it's all gone. Just like that. 

As I have already complained about it my earlier post, exams are coming up. As well as every exam, these are crucial. These are going to get me in to university. If I get good enough grades. I am on "holiday" at the moment for Easter but it's more like a study period more than anything else.

Time has just got to s-l-o-w d-o-w-n. I've been told by my elders that time goes faster as you grow older. It seriously can't...! I mean, COME ON! It's crazy.

Ironically, this time last year, I was more focussed on my exams. I did really well and got the results I wanted. This year is a different story. I am in a serious relationship which has turned into my main priority. It has been a constant battle all year to make school work my first priority. I've always let my heart rule over my head but I've had to have a realistic and reasonable perspective on my life now and what the consequences are.

The difficulty is, I don't get to see my boyfriend much because of the awkwardness of where I live and I don't have a mobile phone signal so I miss him very much. We are in love with each other so you can imagine the difficulty of not seeing each other as much as we would like to. However, I am getting my provisional driving licence in a couple of weeks and by the time I am driving, my exams will have finished! (WOOHOO!)

The scary thing is, the time it has taken for this year at school to pass has gone in a flash. My exams will be over in 2 months. That flash isn't going to be seen because it's going to go faster than the speed of light. I don't want it to be that fast because the courses I have been doing have been so rushed and so much is crammed in to barely a year. I feel so unprepared for these exams. The saying, "Fail to prepare, prepare to fail" keeps running through my mind. Thing is, I have done a lot of work for these exams and throughout the entire school year.

I have one thing to say...I can not wait until the summer holidays (and it better be a good one with a set of good results!!!) 

Isolation

My life - so far - has been pretty shiftless. I have lived in the same place all my life and it is very remote. It has kept me in a childlike perception of the world. I can quite happily sing at the top of my voice whilst walking the dogs and let me assure you, I have. Plenty times. I love where I live because of the freedoms that it brings. There are not many people and the people who do inhabit here, are often away or never really emerge from their houses.

This place has put a false sense of safety on me. I ride my bike very often with my iPod blazing in my ears, no helmet, hands not on the handle bars, singing (again) at the top of my lungs, swerving about the narrow roads. In more recent years, I've had the pleasantry of turning around to see motorists with the unmistakable look of "unimpressed" lining their faces and raised eyebrows that would give many botox users a run for their money. I stop in mid-belt of singing and crash in to the grass banking. They pass looking down on me like I had just peed on their new white carpet and the red powder of embarrassment sprinkles over my face. I play it cool until they are a good 1000 yards and sharp corners in front before I let loose again.

There are also social issues. I find it absolutely fine meeting new people, I have the confidence but actually conversing with them is quite something else. I stumble over my words rather impressively. Even with people I know quite well, it can be an issue. I don't know if I can blame it on where I live, probably not. Reading something aloud in class is an awkward and frustrating time for everyone. A lot of the time when I was younger was low self-esteem and a great lack in confidence. I have improved so much since then but the trouble with talking and reading out loud is still lingering like a very bad smell.

My parents are extremely protective. I have a hard job getting to do anything very slightly out of the ordinary. Even though I get away with cycling they way I do...

My life in this idyllic place is nearly over. I will be fleeing from the nest pretty soon. I am aware of the the dangers of this world but never had a chance to put myself to the challenge.

I strongly appreciate the rose-tinted life that this place has given me and it has prolonged my naivety and innocence which I cherish but it's disappearing fast. The cynicism has already set in for preparation of adulthood but I will always return to this place for a dose of heaven.

Denial

I really should not start this whole blogging thing. It is something I've always had an interest in but never dared to do it. I thought, "why would anyone want to waste their time reading about my life when they have their own? What makes my life so readable?" It's strange that I have just decided to get one at this crucial time of the approaching exams. I have stupidly started this. Knowing me, I will get addicted, posting every day. I am in denial. Right now, my brain is telling me, "get off this bloody thing and write your history essay. You have an exam timetable to follow." Plus, it is SUNNY outside - a rare and precious sight. I just want to rebell whenever I look out my window and GO OUTSIDE...but I can not.

I have thought for so long that school is everything. That everything depends on it. I guess it does but I have forgotten that there is a life outside of school. It's only been recently that I've realized that. (Thank you, Joseph). There is the fact that allows you to be educated, get qualifications, go straight in to a job or go to college/university and then eventually get a job (hopefully...). It's been drilled in to me that life is not just school. It is a big part, yes, but if you think about ALL of those hours you have spent at school throughout our lives, we have been learning, right? Think if we were not at school and what we could have been learning by just following our natural interests. Obviously we would not get any qualifications and have a pretty hard time getting a job that pays. That's where I don't agree with our way of  life, it is too...money orientated.

I am just saying all of this to make my procrastinating sound better and to say, "Erm, excuse me, I should not have to study today because it is SUNNY!"

No, I shall do this essay because I would love to go to university. However, I now know that I should not be so extreme and serious about school because happiness is all that matters. So best of both, I think. Everyone knows that anyway, I'm just in denial... ESSAY, WOMAN. ESSAY!