Passing visit.

Good grief I haven't done this for years. (literally!)

I stumbled upon this blog at 2:30am on a Thursday when I was trying really hard not to sleep.  I felt I had to reactivate a dead email address and just change it a little; bring it into 2014 and drag it out of 2011 (ew.)

My life has changed a bit since I last wrote here.  Two years ago all my constants melted away and left me not knowing what the hell I was going to do with my life.
      I'm still trying to figure that out; but my life is (slightly) more settled now again.  And anyway I'm nearly there. In just a couple of months I'll be starting a life independent for the first time and it can't come soon enough.

I have recently started drinking peppermint tea and doing meditation once a week to help myself; but I'm getting there which is great because I can feel better about myself.  The dark clouds still try to assimilate occasionally (usually at night at around this time) but by talking to myself; and saying that it will be not just okay; but good or even great.

Having said that; it's not all sunshine and roses now;  one of my biggest problems has been finding the motivation to work at home since we moved.  I can do absolutely everything apart from work here.  but as soon as I'm out of the house I can work again.  It doesn't matter how many books I surround myself with or how far away I put my electronics; and I love my electricals; i just stare off into space; for hours.  It's so frustrating as I don't know how to deal with it; and that's the last thing that is really holding me back.

But I'll get there; and more importantly I'll get out.  Into the big wide world down which ever route I tread.


P.S.  Hasn't this season (21st) of Top Gear just been the most awesome ever?

P.P.S I wonder whether they will cover the fact that de facto the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport is no longer the fastest car in the world; it's crown has been taken by the Hennessey Venom GT; but this has yet to be Guinness Record confirmed.  But exciting!

P.P.P.S So many extra things to say; but that need to be said; my novel is getting closer to completion.  Although I've been saying it will be finished soon since I made my first post here; I seriously underestimated the scale of work needed to be done as I got older; however things are coming together now and I aim to keep the momentum going and finish this baby once and for all.

I shall now say good night :)

Belle <3 x

The Promised extract

Hello,
Here is my first chapter from my novel.  This is the third time I have tried to write an opening chapter for my novel, I believe that this is the best I have come up with.  To me it is a brilliant start of what is to come.  I hope everyone who reads it likes it, and has something to say.  Anyway here goes...

Starting to end, my life as cyclic

My name is Freya.  I live on the planet Panaterra, on the island of Cotta, well I do for the moment at least; although in a few short hours I will change and ditch this life akin to a snake shedding a skin.  I live in the largest city on Cotta, the city of Nom.  I am a member of the upper bourgeoisie.  I have a high-flying job in Nom, as CEO of Ware Scientific Research; the leader in the area of all things that are cosmic.  On Panaterra, it is the females who work and earn money.  The sole purpose of men is to care for the children and the home.   My solar system is on the opposing side of the Milky Way to the Orion Spur.  My galactic spur is just a small starry stretch called the Norma Arm, and Panaterra is situated cosily on the eastern edge of the middle section. 

I love my husband.  Unusually for most people in Cotta, my husband and I live happily.  He has raised our children wonderfully.  He had to give up his job when I gave birth to the first of our four children.  Yes, on Panaterra females give birth to the children, but when the umbilical cord is cut, so is the feminine desire to nurture the child and the paternal instinct kicks in.  A scarily spreading galactic phenomenon known as single parent upbringing is unknown on Panaterra.

Just like any other average sized planet, perfectly positioned in relation to the central star, life of all kinds is plentiful; too plentiful.  There are now more than 10 billion people on Panaterra now, but this figure is now static.  To combat this issue the Global Government, almost exclusively compiled of Cotta people - the elite, myself included, has introduced a cull on people aged 65 years.  If you are healthy when you are terminated then you also automatically become a donor of useful parts and organs.  Sterile children are weeded out at birth, as the world does not need nor can it accommodate those with any form of mental, physical or emotional defect.  If you are identified as sterile at your monthly screening, or any other problems are noticed then you will receive a termination letter, shortly afterwards. 

On your 65^th birthday, you are sent a letter, detailing how many months you have left until you have to terminate.  Depending on your social status, you will be given a longer period of time to pull your life to a close.  A typical low-life, one who makes the likes of my circle shudder, will be given one month maximum on the understanding that his or her life is so bland that there isn’t much to be sorted out.  However a person like me, who is well known and who moves in important and influential circles, could be given up to eight months; on the understanding that we have to spend a great deal of time preparing for our exit. 

In a female’s life there are two events to prepare for, her introduction, and her termination.  The introduction is a symbol of adolescence, when her young mind and body prepare to enter the most colourful stage in her life.  You are expected to work until you receive your letter. 

I have one day left before I terminate.

But unlike everyone else, I’m not really going to terminate; yes I’ve just made my grand public departure so everyone can be nicely under the assumption I’ve really gone, but I have found a glitch in the galaxy.  You see, Ware Scientific Research was really an elaborate cover to manipulate the system.  I was given the longest possible time to wrap up to termination as I am the person who invented the means of travelling extremely close to the speed of light.  Not that it was very hard.  All I had to do was to make a few new calculations about light and the centre of the galaxy and the solution was obvious.  I became a billionaire due to my success.  Once I had jumped over that hurdle, I set my sights on the one thing that every girl growing up dreams of - to cross the galaxy on the day of termination, and start life again as if it were your first.  It is the unspoken dream. 

I however, have found a way to do this.  Due to the inconsistent flow of time through the galaxy I can travel at a minute fraction of a second less than the speed of light.  What I have also found a way to do is to send singular atoms of my body across the Milky Way, as a clump of interstellar gas until I reassemble at my target.  I have found out and carefully mapped the path to my destination. 

To my utmost surprise my chosen destination is almost identical to Panaterra, except it is located in Galactic Sector ZZ₉ Plural Z Alpha.  What a weird name and how awfully clinical.  I have been researching into this planet.  The one difference that disturbs me is that women on this planet look after the children, while the men have the high flying jobs.  How weird is that!  When I arrive there I will make it my mission to sort that out.  Another thing I have found out is that they have these things called religions; basically people worship a particular person, real or imaginary, for things they have supposedly done.  I find it mind boggling as to why they do this.  On Panaterra you simply don’t have the time to indulge yourself in such fantasies; men possibly might, as they only have to look after the children, but females?  Surely these people can’t choose to compromise their precious sleep hours to worship someone.  I guess I’ll just have to work it out when I reach there.  I wonder if it is planetary self-defence designed to confuse incomers into submission and leaving their strange planet alone.

Two more things have spooked me though.   One is the thought that although the global population of my destination planet is teetering on 10 billion people, the governments of all of their 196 nations in their world, refuse to set a cull age.  I think the word to describe these people is the earthly word liberal.  The other problem is that they have no compulsory donor system, are the people of this planet trying to self destruct?  And why oh why do they use their finite oil resources to propel themselves from a to b, when they have not yet developed a method of hydrogen fusion, the epitome of efficient nuclear power, like we have on Panaterra.  As usual Cotta has led the way for other countries to follow our glorious example. 

As I’m going to be travelling to this strangely similar planet, which I found out has a much less scientific name; Earth, I decided to learn the language of the country I’m going to be staying in, something called British English.  Ever since I formulated the idea of travelling to another solar system, I had wanted to go to the Orion Spur, well it was either that or Betelgeuse, and when I was reading one of the English books; (I feel very smug about being able to speak in a language that no-one else can), it mentioned that Betelgeuse has some frightful creatures. And anyway the computations weren’t nearly as secure as they were for Earth.  One of the ancient languages on Earth is called Latin, and in Latin Earth is known as Terra.  How exciting to have a connection to a planet across the galaxy in the Orion Spur. 

I fall asleep grinning at the prospect of what I am going to face, when the central star reveals itself in the morning.  The next day is my last on Panaterra, I spend time until the peak of the day saying my goodbyes and sharing comforting embraces with my husband for the last time.  I wonder if I will miss him when I am on Earth.  How much of this glorious life will I remember, or does this messed up version of galactic space travel wipe your memory like a magnet over a sim card.  I wish I could take images with me, rather than hope for the strength of my mind.

The grains of sand of my time are slipping away.  My computing device is set up so that all I have to do is press enter twice and I will be sucked through a tear in time, and pulled through to this place called Earth.  Just now I have kissed my husband for the final time; I can’t believe that I’m leaving him forever.  Grudgingly I press the button, once; twice; but I can’t pry my hand away from his.  We are both pulled in all directions at once.  I realise with equal amounts of horror and joy that we are both being sent to Earth. 

Will I meet him on earth?  This was not how it was meant to happen, my poor children losing both parents at once, it should have been a gradual loss, first me then him.  I’m sure they will understand.  Time isn’t kind to me, it rips me away from him and he is lost to me in transition.  Slowly I reassemble as a bundle of multiplying cells in a uterus.  Over nine months I grow and I can feel my body adapting to suit the earthly world.   My memories of Panaterra slide succinctly into oblivion as I gasp breaths of a new world. 

I am born and then without warning life lurches ahead furiously.  As if someone has found my fast-forward button and jammed it.  I see and feel everything, every emotion, success, failure; every moment of Earth time is recorded in my brain.  The sensation speeds up and nearly two decades of life; 236 months or 19¾ years to be exact fly, fumble and flash past me.  However as time reaches forward all my senses are filled with a mind-boggling sensation, as each sense is pushed over the cliff of overload.  I close my eyes and the feeling stops. But I am unable to return and slip into the darkness to embrace my new home.  I have only one ironically appropriate lingering thought that has flown to welcome me. 

“Welcome to the universe Miss Jones.”   

 There you are.  It's long yes, but hey how was I meant to write anything shorter.
All for now
Belle
<3 x

Well that was an experience...

Hi again,
I know I haven't blogged for ages. :(

I was in South Africa for two weeks, (jealous?) followed by three weeks of GCSE trial exams, with a few modules as well (laughing yet?). They were evil as was expected.

South Africa, or Cape Town to be specific was awesome! I was staying at the Vineyard Hotel and Spa just outside the city centre, for the first week, my last few days I spent in an one bedroom chalet on the L'Olivier estate, with all the other people who I was with. My view from my room at the Vineyard was amazing; the balcony looked straight up onto Table Mountain.

Table Mountain from Kirstenbosch
National Gardens

Here are some words of warning though; DO NOT, unless you like me are stupid and don't think things through, go up Table Mountain in the summer at 12 noon when it is 40C+. There is no shade at the top and I could actually feel my legs being caramelized as I walked around the top. There is no wind whatsoever. I got out of the rotating cable car, to find that I had sandal lines after a few hours. In England it takes me nearly three months to get my legs to be slightly less white, the Cape Townian sun is pretty powerful.

It was certainly a change to go out from wearing trackies, hoodies, and sheepskin boots, with snow on the ground, to a minimum of 26C and sandals, shorts and tees. Not that I missed the bulky fleeces. I was lucky enough to know someone who was willing to pay for my Mum and me to fly out and stay there, as I would under no circumstances be able to afford to do that at such short notice.

I visited beautiful places  such as Kirstenbosch National Gardens, went down to Cape Point and Cape of Good Hope. They had these cute little praline coloured mammals which I found out later were called Dassies or Rock Hyraxes which were most closely related to elephants.

A Dassie basking in the sun

The one thing that got to me though, was that everyone who lived in a house and not in the townships, had high fences, razor-wire and security systems. No-one, and I mean no-one walks around from a to b. People do walk around in the town centre but that’s it, apart from that everyone drives around with the windows tightly shut and air-con blazing. At every traffic light people would come up and tap on your windows trying to get you to buy things that they had made, and it would take five people to fill up your car at a petrol station. Speaking of petrol, it was so cheap out there in comparison with the UK. It cost 8.2 rand which is around 82p. That’s over 50p cheaper, and I wondered if it would be cheaper to buy petrol in South Africa and import it into the UK. It probably would be cheaper as well!

I added the link as I got from looking at Andrew Garfield looking good in Spider-man garb through to a Perez Hilton post commenting on how Bella was acted in New Moon, it included this clip; but due to a faulty internet I had to fish the video out of YouTube. I completely cracked up when I saw this.  But you can make up your own mind about it.

Okay, mini rant now over. :)

In other news Top Gear is back on BBC 2 on Sunday at 8pm, yay! Also I am inching closer to finishing my book, slowly and surely, I'm on about 178k now and counting. I'm just deciding on an extract to post here.

Referring back to my title again…
Oh yes for well over a decade I have been living on my own, with just my mum. I was happy with my life, I wouldn't have made any major life altering changes. So what does my mum do?

She gets engaged to a guy who is over 15 years her senior. They have been going out for a few months, and they want to get married, put both houses on the market, find a new house that they like, and buy it. They want to do this all before I go back to school in September. So they have roughly eight months. The one thing that got to me? It hadn't, in all of their five months in which they had been supposedly dating, crossed my mind that they would even think of getting married. I thought that they were just good friends like the other men that occasionally show up at my mums house.  I know I have made my mum sound completely like a demonic she-wolf, but its just a big change to grasp.

When I told my friends I think that they were firstly amazed, and secondly sad that I would have to leave my current house which I love. I have a pond and a small rowing boat at my current house an i know my friends will miss that when I move.

My favourite poster for the film

So exited about going to see Never Let Me Go in the cinema next week.  I read the book which is by Kazuo Ishiguro when during my christmas break.  It was amazing.  The quality of the writing was phenomenal.  I have fallen in love with Tommy, he is so adorable.  And I am counting down the days until I can see it on the silver screen.  Carey Mulligan [=)], Keira Knightley and Andrew Garfield [=D] are starring, and judging from the trailer they are going to make for a damn good film.  Will comment again once I have seen it.

That’s all I have to say for now, I hope no more crazy things happen by the next time I have blogged. I'm going be more reliable about blogging from now on.

Belle

<3 x

Poll Placement

Hi, 
My polls will now always be on the right hand side of my blog page.
Thats all 


Belle
<3 x

Snow without Sleep

Hey,

To anyone reading this in England, you will know what I mean, when I say that the last week has been slightly cold.  Where I live has dipped down to temp of around -4°C, which, when the boiler in your house has broken down, is freezing.  The last two nights we have had at least 20 inches of snow; which for the South of England is a lot!  One inevitable good point has been that deep snow has prevented me from attending school giving me a delightful 5-day weekend.  My Jack Wills trackies have been my saviours for this evil cold snap; I am in love with them at the moment; they have been invaluable at keeping my legs from the frost as I wade through the snow drifts.  They're definitely a bit more expensive than bog standard trackies, but so worth the investment, I would not do without them I have three beautiful fox terriers (one mum, and two of her pups; a girl and a boy), and they delight in the snow.  They have found particular delight in traipsing through the house after they have come in from playing in the snow, and shaking the snow that has clumped to them everywhere.  This then results in lovely puddles of water spilling across the floor, just waiting for me to slip over.  

Now as you either might or might not know, I am writing a novel.  To find the time amongst long tiring school days (the school bus picks me up at 7am, and drops me off at 8pm) is a stretch to say the least.  I have to grab every opportunity to write with open arms.  I write on the school bus going to and from school; in between doing prep after school before the bus leaves at 19:15; and my eye-rolling habit, staying up till between 1-3am every morning or night, however you want to interpret it.  Yes you could call it stupidity; I prefer to label it as dedication.  After months of having 3-5 hours sleep open, you get just a bit tired.  I also display that characteristic teenage trait; to never be able to wake up before the clock hits double figures, of my own volition at least.

Phew!  That was a long post; but I guess I had quite a few things to say to the world who would want to listen to me.  That’s all for now; until next time.  For now, remember this phrase: ‘Carpe Diem – Seize the Carp’.

<3 x

Belle

Links, Cheesiness and Novels

Hi,
I just thought that i should explain why I have such an eclectic range of links at the top of my page. The links have either amused me or affected/inspired me to become the person I am.  Yep it's cheesy, but it works.  (Early P.S.)  Special note on Remember Me; I'm saying the next bit at the risk of sounding like an obsessive freak, but here goes.  This movie had a REAL affect on me; I cried for about ninety minutes during the film, and was in a mega depressed mood for the rest of that day; even thinking about the film makes me cry.  

I'm sad I know that already; but I hope I haven't scared you away with my freakishness, so now on with the bulk of my post.


I say inspire because I am writing a novel at the moment.  Smack bang in the middle of GCSE's, I get this urge to write a story; not the best of timing, but when the inspiration comes you just have to go with it.  I'm still writing it at the moment, but I'm around over two-thirds of the way there (I started in February 2010 and I hope to be finished by January 2011,(probably just wishful thinking but hey, I'll try) just in time for my mocks.)  I haven't exactly decided on a title, all my previous ideas have just not gone right.  Basically the story is a modern coming-of-age story, which deals with issues of trust, insecurity, and relationships in life.  When an embittered student and a broken movie star to each other, how will they react?  Will they fuse?  Or will they form indifference to the other?


An extract will hopefully be coming soon
Bye
<3 x 

Starting Out

Hi,
Welcome to my new blog.  This is my first adventure into the blog-sphere, so please bear with me if I get things wrong.
About me: I'm a teenage girl in the middle of her GCSE's at the moment, anyone who says that Year 11 is easy, is lying or delusional or has memory loss.  NEVER believe them.  I go to a public (for people outside the UK this is an old private school) boarding school, which also happens to be an all girls school, in the south-east of England (just in case you hadn't managed to work out that already that I live in England).
Anyway... I decided to write this blog because i wanted to have a public way to express my opinions and feelings a this seemed like the best idea.
Well this was meant to be a short intro into why I wanted to do this.  I hope you have enjoyed it.
<3 x