I can't believe this is one of the top recommended articles. What a rubbish, useless article.









(Sigh.)

I feel...like every story has already been told.
Maybe innovation is in the way in which you tell them.

I've spent hours reading an article the sum total of which can be said in one sentence. I'm so mad at myself.

The use of music as torture. Man alive. They played prisoners in Guantanamo Bay Barney the dinosaur's annoying little 'I love you, you love me' thing. All of me revolts against that, in particular. Just the most cruel, cruel sadistic thing. Also Christina Aguilera's 'Let's Get Dirty' - imagine the humiliation for Muslim prisoners.
* yes, haha, news - torturers in Gunatanamo Bay are cruel and sadistic. *Obviously*.

The reason I picked up on this is that after a certain time - early evening, in Durham bus station, they were playing the most awful music ever - Christmas songs sung by (it seemed)mickey mouse. Just the most annoying and bizarre and inhumanly cutesy voice, and we reckon the idea was to stop young people from thinking the bus station is a nice place to hang out. So [*mucho indignation!*] I object to the sneaky underhandedness of it, I object to the demonisation of people just because they wear lots of eyeliner and don't sit on the seats - and who are they doing it for? Their 'valued customers'? Because the people taking buses aren't going to thank you either, pal. I object to making the bus station a terribly bleak and cheerless place at Christmas, of all times! Oh, don't give me that 'it's happy Christmas music' - it's not and you know it. It's also sad that there isn't really anywhere for kids to hang out in Durham. There isn't even much of a disused playground. There's all this stuff catering to students - and the under-10s are all locked up at home, presumably - but where do the teenagers go? And how much should we be worrying about teenagers anyway?

Cue launching into 'kids these days' speech.

Kids these days are watched too much. Way too much. When I was working at the After School Club in my gap year, that was the main thing, I think, that I took away from it. We needed one adult per 6 kids or something, and our job was to watch them, sort out scrapes, make sure they didn't do anything dangerous. We provided the activities, and they played by the rules. Of course I loved the opportunity to observe/participate in the world these kids created. Loved it like anything. But by golly, how much of it was any of my business? When I was a kid, I barely remember adults even existing. Especially at Hebron. Imagine if all the time we were playing we were being watched. How awful, how wrong. Imagine if whenever someone swore a teacher leapt out from behind a bush. You can't and shouldn't protect kids from everything. Friendships form and break up, fights happen, and adults should only be brought in as a last resort. Obviously, if you're there are as an adult and you see an argument break out, you're going to step in. So just don't be there. Stop spoiling everything.

Kids should keep each other entertained. 'Keeping kids off the streets'? I long - always - for a world where kids play together on the pavements. It's part of my love for 'street culture' - life being lived in public places, as a visible community. Britain is so rubbish at this, but there are all those old photos of kids playing hopscotch. Urban India is pretty rubbish. House to car to shop to car to house - oh its awful, there are no public spaces, Delhi doesn't have a city centre. Endless 'colonies' with strangers living next door to each other. Dundlod was beautiful - kids ran around the streets and were in and out of each others houses, as was everyone, all the time. Could it be because there were no cars? Because there is nothing in the house you are afraid might get stolen? Because 'the house' simply does not have all the meanings it has for the more affluent?

:(

I feel like such an idiot for not arranging to do anything on New Year's Eve and so ending up sitting in my room in an empty empty Durham, with a stomach cramp no less. And not even a train ride because my keys to the flat in Edinburgh have disappeared, so I missed my train and have that to worry about, instead of 'Anjali, being on your own has never been a problem for you so let's just have a wonderful evening!' No, I need to find that key or think up another plan, because I want to be out of the house ASAP, because I suspect the Browns (our landlords) may come in tomorrow, and I told them I was leaving today.
Also, do you have any idea where the manual for my printer is so I can find out how to fix 'error 5100' and print out all the lecture notes for last term. The work situation at the end of term 2 is depressing. Other people actually work! I want to work! I need to sort my life out. I am going to sort my life out tomorrow.
Meanwhile, a fantastic little production is taking shape in my head - and also panicking me when I think about next term because I want to direct this thing but also want to act in something - there is so much going on drama-wise next term and I really really want to be in at least two of them (but no, of course that's a bad idea. I need to look at dates and things and work out what I can do sensibly) but also work has to take centre stage (ha ha, funny choice of phrase)because about a quarter of my degree is due next term! Not that much. But a heck of a lot.

But my holidays have been awesome! The first part - I went to London - I love London! My brother lives in a flat in Shadwell, which is in East London, and inhabited almost entirely by Bangladeshis, and I loved it.
Yes, it is really not good for me to be holed up here, when it's people and places that get me excited. Also, there are very few books, both here and in my flat in Edinburgh. I can't live like that. I miss intensely the library at Morland. (Which is where I spent Christmas. Oh, wood-burning stoves! ) Books, fire and company.

I should go and cook something and then...I should probably call my parents in the morning - quite early in the morning, and ask what to do and whether Patrizios are there with spare key...

Here is a video to cheer you up. I've watched it perhaps 50 times. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=WCUfkMkVbwo

And a Happy New Year.
I would appreciate a hug and a prayer, spiritually rubbish year of prolonged crisis to tell you the truth, but God has got a hold of me and already the sky is lightening. I have been rubbish at communicating - like a child with a disability - but I hope for that to change - I plan for that to change - I will be writing letters and telling everything to someone. Because not talking is nonsensical self-punishment. I want to look back on 2009 and say 'that was an awesome year, full of love and growth and light and life and excitement'. Man, I'm starving. I love you all. xxxx

I've just been to a lecture, and I feel I should congratulate myself whenever I do something like this. I missed five last week, plus a tutorial. I'd started to forget about this degree business. So I'm panicking a bit.
Every day feels like a new and experimental life. Like when you've come back from the dead, or someone you know has died, or you've taken the day off to take the train to Wales. You're divorced from routine or responsibility. You're in a special pocket of existing, in fact when you sit in a room full of other people on computers you suspect you might only be a trick of the light.
I really should work.
I've been given a new life!
I am so free!
I am going to be responsible about this!
I am going to do something else that defies logic!

Today I sat in Esquires and read the deaths notices from start to finish
(If I go home I can finish that pizza)
Some sort of emotional masochism? I needed to feel
I wanted to sit in a coffee shop and plumb the depths of people's experience
Goodness I feel funny. All I had today was one large ('ampio') cup of coffee ('latte') with raspberry syrup. Now it's 3 o'clock. I'm floating
That was one thing - bearable and sad and important - every day people's lives are being changed. Everybody dies, and today these particular families are face to face with the abyss under existence and through the cracks in carefully constructed lives it's the same thing. And families and love and all the churches and flowers and how many are Christians? I hoped they all were. I made myself believe that they all were.
On the next page was other things - someone's kitten lost - and a year on - maybe a few years on - people remembering the dead. And someone called Ashley who had a poem printed from 'mam and dad', and one from Gran. I went to the toilet and cried like a baby. My heart breaks so often these days. Remembrance day and all those poor boys in the army.
Let's get some books out, but I really need to eat.
I was out of the house at eleven! I experienced sunlight! I went to a lecture and now I'm in the library! It's like being on holiday.
Four hours till rehearsal - hmmm, I could do two hours of reading for my essay? Yes. I could go to Castle library arrrrrrrgh that darn project, I get so frustrated because their ideas are so different to mine.
I am starving.
I was sick last week, don't worry, I'm not that much of a slacker.

Actually, I wrote another post as well, but it doesn't seem to be here.