At last, I’ve finished high school for good. No more uniform, no more bells ringing periodically. Except of course for the fact I want to become a teacher. There are so many things I’ve been waiting to do, and now my exams are all over, I can finally get on with it.
I want to become more fluent in German, because I have neglected it since I went to Germany almost a year ago. I want to get started on learning Japanese because I have a conditional at Edinburgh Uni to study it. To be honest, I don’t think I did well enough in my exams to get in, but it’s better to be optimistic. I think it’s important to keep your self-esteem no matter what happens.
Speaking of self-esteem, I was watching a documentary about Vaginoplasty today. I felt incredibly sorry for some of the women on it. One girl had been verbally torn apart by some men in a club because of the way her labia looked. How petty and ridiculous is that? As if it wasn’t bad enough the way people are treated based on their breasts or their tummies, now the aesthetics of the vagina is a problem. One plastic surgery had seen a 300% increase in labia reductions; many of the patients were only around 16 years old.
Well of course we know what this is going to be blamed on. Porn. This is an excuse. Yes of course porn shows an unrealistic perfection in people’s bodies. But can’t we see through this and realise that porn is just a fantasy? You wouldn’t watch a film about human flight and then jump off a cliff. No, we need to be more realistic. Porn isn’t to blame, our society is.
We ourselves perpetuate this behaviour. We try too hard to emulate what is clearly impossible and then that kind of standard is passed on. The taboos of sex and body image need to be forgotten, and we need to become more comfortable with ourselves.
It just makes me so sad and disgusted when people would rather change their own body rather than the way they see themselves. If your boy/girlfriend doesn’t like the way you look, well then, what on earth are you doing with them? Another part of the documentary showed young Muslim women going for hymen reconstruction because on their wedding nights, if their hymen wasn’t intact, they could be punished, even killed because it would mean they were not a virgin. This is happening right here in the UK. Apart from the fact that you can break your hymen from activities such as horseriding, what’s the big deal with losing your virginity before marriage anyway? Virginity is a meaningless word. Having sex makes you no less of a person, it doesn’t change anything. People still seem to think it’s some kind of dark magical act that will make you impure and evil.
Our society is in desperate need of reform.
“The Perfect Vagina” can be watched here.
Here is an email I sent to all my local councillors:
Hello, my name is Iona Grant and I am living in Helensburgh. Please consider my suggestion, as I believe it is a very important, although ignored issue affecting many teenagers across the country, even the world, and I believe we can make a real difference.
Here is my suggestion: Sex education has improved vastly all over the UK; I think you will agree with me on that. Children are now taught much more, from the ages of 11 in Primary school, and in Social Education in the Academy. They are taught about changes in the body, periods, and sex. However there is a vitally important thing that is forgotten. Masturbation. This is something which affects everybody, sometimes from as young as five years old, for many many years. It is seen as taboo. Masturbation is something never discussed between friends, and often not mentioned between lovers. Vibrators are a clandestine purchase, smuggled away in the backs of drawers. And yet we have one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in the world.
Instead of trying to convince teenagers to use protection and be careful, why not advocate self pleasure? It is clear, that making self love more important will lead to self respect, and a willingness to leave sex until they understand themselves and their body as well as possible. This is particularly important for girls, as female anatomy is not properly taught, and many girls I know (I am in 6th year) do not even know what a clitoris is. That is ridiculous. That a girl does not even know her main source of pleasure, at 16 and 17 years old- is it not now obvious why they turn to having sex at an early age? A desire for sexual fulfillment which could so easily be acheived by knowing how to masturbate. The dread and worry after finding her cervix for the first time can lead to a girl thinking she has cancer. This is not necessary! Why aren’t we taught this?
I have decided to start a mini revolution of sorts amongst my friends and classmates. I will freely talk about masturbation and I will love my body, raise my self esteem and that of other girls. Low self esteem is a hidden problem in modern society. But it can be changed! Many girls, once I talk to them a while about loving themselves, the way they view their body- they finally realise how they are not too fat, the size difference in their breasts is not so strange, their stretchmarks do not make them ugly!
I have one friend, who didn’t want me to say her name, but agreed to share her problem. She is 16 years old. She has one breast one cup size bigger than the other. She can’t watch people kiss or have sex in movies. She thought masturbation was wrong. I showed her some websites such as scarleteen.com which is a very good site for sex education. I have had to walk her through masturbation via MSN. Now she is trying to have her first orgasm, she enjoys masturbation, and you wouldn’t believe how much more confident she is, how much she now loves her body. She is positive now, whereas before she thought she was worthless. She thought she was worthless.
This is where I need your help, and that of other people who can give us a voice. We need a program in schools, and in youth clubs of self love and masturbation. We need to be given a proper guide to knowing our own bodies, something which can make us more confident and even save lives. I cannot talk to every single girl in Helensburgh about this, however much I would love to. With your help, we can make a difference. We can help girls love themselves, and to respect their bodies. I am no feminist, I am no neo-hippy. This is a relevant and vital yet ignored issue.
Thank you for reading and considering my point. I truly hope that you will help publicise this issue and stop masturbation from being a taboo, once and for all! It is time for a change in our views of self pleasure. Please help me put this in motion. I await your reply.
I didn’t realise what I was getting myself in for.
I didn’t even expect to be chosen.
During one of my frequent bouts of procrastination one winter’s evening, I stumbled upon a website which was offering a free scholarship to Germany. Eight lucky British people would be spending the month of July travelling Germany with people from all over the world. I’m very passionate about languages and own a plethora of phrase books, so I thought this would be my best chance of going abroad. I had longed to visit another country for years.
To have a chance of taking part in this scholarship programme, I completed so many forms I thought my hand would fall off. Thanks to my habit of procrastination, I was a day late finishing everything. Too bad, I didn’t expect to be picked anyway. Surely there were many others across the UK who were so much better at German than me.
One April morning, I discovered a letter on the hall floor, stamped ‘UK-German Connection’. I was sure they were letting me know I wasn’t successful. My heart dropped to the floor as I tore it open and saw it was all typed in German. I could hardly understand the reading passages we did in German class, this was a bit mean. However, I quickly realised I wasn’t going to need a dictionary to work this out.
“Herzlichen Glückwunsch!”
Surely you don’t say congratulations to someone who hasn’t been accepted.
I read on, not sure whether to trust my German skills or not.
“You have been chosen for this year’s scholarship programme in Germany!”
But I don’t even have a passport!
The next couple of months passed like a dream. I had to apply for my first passport which involved getting an interview and I didn’t think I’d get it in time for July. I needed a bag to fit everything I would need for one month and I needed transport to London and back. Fortunately my grandparents took care of that for me. It would appear that the only thing for me to worry about was how I would manage away from home for so long, as I am a shy person and don’t easily talk to people, let alone in a foreign language. However there was one other problem.
When I had applied to go to Germany, I was tired of my life at home. I wanted to escape from the stress of my family arguing. I wanted to forget about my friends who couldn’t even talk about anything more than celebrities and music, whilst I wanted to debate about philosophy and politics. I was so lost and out of place. But since the new year, I had found somebody to be with. It might seem soppy, but I had completely fallen in love. The boy in question, Andrew, had known me vaguely for a few years, but we had recently been talking and discovered that we had a lot more in common than we had ever before realised. By the summer, he had been my boyfriend for several months and as July approached, the month I would spend abroad didn’t seem quite so appealing. He didn’t want me to leave, and I wanted to hide him in my bag and take him with me.
But this was something I had to do.
Arriving at Terminal 5 on the first day of July, I didn’t want to think about the month ahead. I tried to keep myself calm to avoid the onset of stomach cramps that always happens when I’m nervous. Soon it was time to board the plane and I said goodbye to Britain. During the journey, I talked to the other British people who were very posh, but other than that, very nice. They had the same concerns as me, and we hadn’t been told much about what the month would involve. Soon we were in Düsseldorf, and as we left the plane, the flight attendants warned us how warm it was outside.
And warm it most certainly was. I wanted to strip but I wasn’t sure how accepting the German culture was of naked people. It’s strange how even on the European continent, culture shock can be a big thing. Not even hours after I stepped off the plane, I was confronted by the absurdity of trains suspended in the air, and double decker trains!
Finally, I was in Bonn, our first stop in Germany. I stumbled up to my hotel room and discovered it was occupied by an African girl in full traditional dress. This was the first of many encounters with people from Brazil to La Reunion, Lithuania to the USA. I will always feel a connection with these people. Complete strangers with whom I ate, lived, and in some cases, shared a bed with. We were like a family who couldn’t always communicate with each other. There were certainly some idiosyncratic characters, such as Liliane, a girl from the Ivory Coast, who was fascinated by such things as MacDonalds, English, and white people.
In amongst my adventures to a restaurant in complete darkness with blind people for waiters, an improvisation act in a Jazz café, the Berlin Wall, Dachau concentration camp, Beethoven’s house, traditional Munich pubs, reaching the top of the highest mountain in Germany and so much more, I read Emails from Andrew, and it was through these that I learned more about him than I could ever imagine. The girls I shared my hotel rooms with teased me about him and wanted to know all about him. It was like having annoying sisters, but I enjoyed it. As I lay in lake Constance with my American friend Karl, we discussed our lives back home and what we missed. Being in Germany was a different world. I wasn’t on Earth any more and everything that went on in my usual life didn’t exist any more, it was a memory of something that never happened. At least, until I read my Emails from Andrew, that’s how it felt.
As I stood in Berlin airport at 6 am on the first day of August, I almost cried. I was torn between this idyllic life with people who cared about me, amazing food, a new adventure everyday, and going home to my messy house with my depressing family and friends… But being with Andrew. Germany had influenced my entire life, my character, my dreams and my outlook on life. There had been good times, and times when I wanted to take the next plane back to the UK. When I was back home, trying to speak English instead of German, stepping over the mess in my house, hiding in my room away from the dark mood between my family members, I wanted to be with Andrew.
It was a summer’s evening, and I was sat in Helensburgh station waiting for him. I ran into his arms and almost knocked him off his feet. Do I regret missing him so much that I sometimes wanted to reverse time and never consider going to Germany? No. There is nothing I regret, nothing I would have changed, save perhaps the wish I had been a little more dramatic and kissed him while he was trying not to fall on his bottom.
There are many reasons why I am an atheist. Mainly these are not philosophical reasons, because I feel that I don’t know enough to make decent arguments. This might lead you to think that perhaps I should be agnostic and not straight-out atheist. However, I do have my reasons. Firstly, I should explain the word atheist. An atheist is simply someone who does not believe in God. This is pretty obvious. My dad once told me that it is impossible to be an atheist because not believing in God is a belief in itself, but he usually doesn’t make much sense anyway. If you look up the word ‘theism’ it says “The morbid condition resulting from the excessive use of tea.” I don’t think this is entirely correct because many atheists also drink tea.
Belief is greatly affected by the way you are brought up. This stands for all religions, including atheism. This is probably a big barrier to proper philosophical debates since many people tend to stick to their guns no matter what anyone else says to them. As a child, my mother often told me that my father’s theist beliefs were wrong and that I shouldn’t believe anything he told me. As a result, I was probably quite rude towards him and his friends. However, children brought up as theists are often the same. They are taught that God exists and that’s all there is to it, and it is probably not very fair on the child.
Not only is it very difficult for me to accept a religion that is accepted purely on the basis of being told it’s just so by your parents, (don’t worry, I’ll get philosophical soon) but there is so much trouble caused by being part of a religion. Look at everything that religion has done. The Ku Klux Klan are christian. Modern-day terrorists are muslim. The fights between protestants and catholics. And in Sikhism, if the first born child is a girl, the mother is blamed and the child can be killed, completely ignoring the fact that a child’s gender is all down to the father’s sperm. Must be a really reliable religion. You’ve probably heard of the Westboro baptist church. They’re the ones who protest publicly that the world is doomed because we’re all gay. They go to people’s funerals and protest saying that they deserved to die. I found a blog called shelleytherepublican.com that says that pokemon and wifi are evil and has a long list of the things and people on ‘God’s hitlist’. These lists include Barack Obama (which they spell ‘Osama’), animal rights people, Germans, Linux users, college professors, poets, starbucks, and vegetarians.
Many christians, muslims and so on will tell you that the people who commit hate crimes and do all these terrible things are not true followers of their religion. That’s all very well, until they try and convince you that their book, be it the bible or the Qu’ran is perfect. Well in that case, how is it possible to twist the ideas in that supposedly perfect book? Does that not show that it cannot have been written by God? The omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent God should be able to make a work that cannot be twisted to suit someone’s terrible ideals. I’m sorry, bible bashing is so very fun.
Let’s get away from actual religion and focus more on the actual belief of God. It’s all very well to make arguments about the existence of God, but then a lot of people will jump to the christian God. No. That doesn’t work. You can say that there was a first cause, but why does that have to be God, and not only that, but the ridiculous God of the bible and Qu’ran. Did you know, in Genesis, God creates light before he creates stars. I’m sorry, I’m not very good at science, but I’m pretty sure the sun is a star. Or am I missing something? Oh yeah, sorry, God can do what he likes.
Anyway, I’ve completely rambled in this essay and I think I should stop now. I’m sorry that it’s not what I’ll need to write for the exam and it’s probably a bit irrelevant.
In conclusion, I am an atheist because there is too much wrong with religion for me to accept it.
Here’s a story, related to ‘Uncertainty’ and completely unedited.
Everyone always looks the same this early in the morning. All suits and ties. Pretty boring, but the worst thing is, I’m like them too. I realised far too late that I had succumbed to the same meagre existance. Sometimes I wish I was unemployed so that I could use it as an excuse to be a writer. I’m far too frightened to do that now. Like everyone else, I try to convince myself that I’m only doing this for the money, that I’ll find something better soon. Who am I kidding? I’ll do this for as long as I live, and then die of heart failure and stress or something like that. That’s how the government wants to keep it. Reasonably low life expectancy so they don’t have to waste money on sheltered housing. Brainwashed to believe there’s nothing else to life but this. This. It frightens me. Success is extinct. Something people look back on and think, if only I’d been born twenty years earlier.
With this thought plaguing my mind, I am saddened. I’ve thought of every escape. The only possibility is death, which will be my way out no matter whether I bring it on myself or wait another 30 years for it.
I stop for a moment and observe the world. I notice a scruffy looking man sit dejectedly on the icy bench in the middle of the street. Heh. One of those types. The ones who refuse to join our lifestyle in favour of a penniless life, full of ‘inspiration’. Wait, wasn’t that what I wanted a few minutes ago? Maybe I’m jealous, but I don’t want to accept that. I don’t want to lose what I have, whatever that might be. Maybe I should talk to him.
If he’s there when I get back from work I might talk to him. These sort sometimes sit there all day. But I’m important! I have no time to lose!
Trying to look purposeful, I stand up and head for work.
“The next time anyone tells you that only losers masturbate, or that they don’t, and never would, bear this in mind: according to most studies and surveys, about 95% of adults have masturbated or continue to do so. Were many falsehoods and misconceptions about masturbation true, it would mean that 95 out of every 100 people would be blind, infertile, drooling psychopaths with hair on their palms and shrunken genitals.” – scarleteen
Despite the fact that nearly everyone does it, there are still many people who are uncomfortable and embarrassed about their own natural urges. Not to mention those who think that it’s wrong or say it goes against their religion! In the mid 20th century, only half of all men asked owned up to masturbating and far fewer women did. It’s a lot less taboo now, but many of us still have preconceptions and old-fashioned views when it comes to playing with ourselves.
Well girls and boys, today we’re going to have a bit of sex education! It’s important to learn as much as you can about sex, even if you don’t plan on having sex or having a partner in the near future. The ‘Sexperts’ at Scarleteen have possibly the most comprehensive guides to all things kinky all in one place, alongside a message board and book recommendations.
According to Heather Corinna of Scarleteen, one of the most important things for your sexual self is to choose yourself as your first partner.
“We hear a whole lot about who should be our first partner. Most of the time, we’re told it should be someone we love and who loves us back, someone committed to us long-term, perhaps even someone we plan to spend the rest of our lives with. I agree completely, because you, all by yourself, have all of those qualities, more than any other person ever can.”
So why is it so important to do anything for your sexuality when it doesn’t involve another person? Sex is all about reproduction, right? Furthering the species and all that.
No way. Not only is that absolutely no fun whatsoever, but masturbation has a lot of health benefits, physical and mental. Don’t believe me? Let’s have a look at what masturbation can do for you.
Firstly, it’s exercise! If you do it rigorously enough, you can be burning well over 100 calories every 20 minutes. And feel that heart pumping! Your circulatory system will thank you.
Regular ejaculation has been proven to decrease prostate cancer in men, and orgasming releases endorphins, making you feel less stressed and sad, and giving you an overall feeling of wellness. Now isn’t that wonderful? It can also cure a headache or any other achey feeling.
Not only that, but by keeping an eye on your down-belows, you’ll be able to detect any health problems you might not have noticed without having a good feel down there.
Furthermore, it helps you discover what you like. You can explore and experiment as much as you like without the pressure of needing to perform for someone else. Then when you’ve found out what makes you go ‘WOW’, you’ll be able to tell your future partner so that both of you can have as much fun as possible.
Finally, even if you are religious, there is no proof that masturbation is evil or wrong. Upon further research, I discovered a page for Christian masturbators. Now you have no excuse!
So, my dears, what’s stopping you? Oh, you don’t know how to do it? Don’t worry, it’s really quite simple. Just do whatever feels best. And if you really don’t know, there are plenty of guides on the internet! Just be careful what you’re clicking on…
Anyway, masturbation can do wonders for everyone. Be proud, loud and not too embarrassed to admit to your hot masturbation skills. I think you’ll find you’re not alone. If you still need more convincing, I really do recommend Scarleteen, guys and girls alike. Sex ed, self-esteem, pregnancy, relationships, everything.
Right, I’ll be back after I get off to some hot gay porn.
I still can’t believe I spent the whole of July in Germany.
Shy little me, never before travelled beyond the shores of the UK.
It wasn’t even a holiday. Now it’s all behind me, and all I have is experience and memories. That’s the most valuable thing you can ever gain, even though some things weren’t quite as positive as I would have been comfortable with. And my goodness, is it stressful speaking a foreign language constantly for a whole month! Trying to be articulate enough to be understood is difficult, but then you have to be social with the other people, some of whom were from countries I had never even heard of. I’ve never talked so much in my whole life, which is strangely ironic, given the fact that my German was not exactly the best in the whole group.
To be quite honest, I don’t think I’ll even keep up with the people from my group much longer. I added all the people I met on Facebook, but I was only very close to about four people. I resolved to be talkative and friendly, but I guess old habits die hard. There was a clear gap between my little group of friends and the loud, typical bunch.
I don’t want to go into too much detail, I’ll discuss things more in detail in other posts, when they become relevant. Of use to a certain theme, you could say.
Something I want to make clear is that when you do something that has a big effect, it builds the foundation or helps structure you. What you bring into conversation, how you see things, your opinions. Everything is effected most by the things that make you uncomfortable or take you out of what you’re used to. Do you remember what happened last Thursday? Probably not. It hasn’t had a big effect on you, and only helps scrape the spare cement off. (But if you’re a procrastinator like me, it didn’t even do that much.)
We all need something to remember. We all need something to look forward to. When you are just stagnating in daily routine, life seems pointless. Anticipate something. Even if it’s just giving yourself a little reward at the end of the week or trying something scary, or making a new friend. Trust me.
I’m building.
In other news, the LHC has a final official start-up date! 10th of September and the (I assume) lovely physicists at CERN will flick the switch to perhaps discovering something incredible- world changing even. I’m looking forward to it.
The Guardian newspaper online has collected quite a few interesting things about it-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/cern
Tschüss!
Well I’m going to be really busy with exams until June, so here’s something just so that it doesn’t seem like I’m neglecting this blog.
For those who are unlucky enough to have not heard yet, the LHC stands for the Large Hadron Collider, the biggest particle accelerator to have ever been built. The idea for it started in the 1980s, but it wasn’t until the mid 90s that it was agreed that it should be constructed. It throws particles together at 99.9% of the speed of light, creating a huge beam which is shot around the round shape of the collider. It will help to solve many mysteries of Physics, including the events surrounding the big bang, Higg’s Boson, which may also answer the question of what is Dark Matter? New particles may be discovered, and it’s all very exciting! Well for someone interested in Physics it is, but everyone should be aware of the huge impact this will have on our understanding of the universe. And it’s all being activated in a couple of hours.
However, they’re not doing any dangerous experiments for a couple months yet, so all the ridiculous predictions of the microscopic black holes that may be formed growing and basically killing us all, can save the worrying till then.
But really, what could be more exciting than discovering the very make up of over 80% of our universe? It’s possible, let’s wait and see what turns out. Besides, even if it goes wrong, we’ll all die before realising what happened.
On a completely different note, look!! My name has been put up for the Scholarship. It all makes it seem so real!
http://www.ukgermanconnection.org/cms/?location_id=172
See you in June! I’ll have plenty to ramble about then. Lots going on.
EDIT: Haha, they reset the timer to 53 days. The site says:
“The countdown timer was set to the 15th of May because there was no definite time given for the actual activation, recent events show that CERN wont be dividing by zero until much later on in the year, so now the countdown timer will be reset again and will be continually tweaked to go by the latest info that CERN are releasing.
So sorry to disappoint you all, but you wont be dying tomorrow.”
Yeah, it’s been a while since I updated, a while since I even bothered about this blog. Not that anyone reads it, but that doesn’t matter. So here’s my excuses. A helluva lot has happened to me! Firstly, I was pretty damn busy with speaking exams for French and German and after that thought, “I need to take a rest from all this!”
So I did. And then I had to go visit my relatives in Musselburgh, see my Dad, the usual. That took a week, no internet, no friends, just old people and museums. I can’t even remember what happened, but what I do know is that I bought a lot of books and suchlike.
I still haven’t done my homework, and school starts on Monday. Deal with that later. Anyway. Got back home on Wednesday, lazed about. Next morning, I spot an envelope in the hall. Then I see who it’s from. Oh crap. The German scholarship people that I signed up with to go to Germany. Chances are they didn’t pick me. There’s bound to be loads more people better at German in the UK than me. I didn’t even try hard at the application since I was in the middle of my exams, and I sent it in late. Open envelope. Put it down and give the cat some milk. Pick it up again and take out letter.
“Herzlichen Glückwunsch, du bist ausgewählt für das diesjährige internationale Preisträgerprogramm in Deutschland!”
You must be kidding me. If my German is any good, that means:
“Congratulations, you have been selected for this year’s international Preisträgerprogramm (winner’s programme) in Germany!”
Oh my God. They chose me. I’m going to Germany. But I’ve never been abroad! This is what I’ve always wanted! And it’s not with family!
Yeah at first I didn’t believe it. But it really happened, and I’m now going through countless forms and passport thingies and health checks.
Enough of the excuses. Enough about me and my incredible luck and pride.
Today I’m going to discuss the importance of keeping a journal and/or notepad with you at all times.
It’s difficult to begin keeping something up like that, particularly if you’re busy or a complete procrastinator like me. But something I really hate is forgetting things that have happened to me. I don’t like not being able to tell someone what I did the day before yesterday. And something incredibly annoying is seeing a word I don’t understand or a quote or phrase I like and not writing it down and not remembering it. Keeping a journal is one of the wisest things you can do. Not only can you look back and see when you did or thought something, but you can solve problems a lot easier. That’s because when everything is crammed into your head, it’s difficult to sort out problems and solutions, things you need to remember and things you want to think about later. Minds can’t cope with that. So you write it down or type it up and there you go! Don’t need to think about it till later!
Although it can be exciting to start a journal and the first entry is huge and full of all sorts of things, after some time you stop being so bothered or you forget or whatever. So I think the best thing to do is, and I got this from a Murakami book, that you should write down little key words and important things every day, and then after a couple days, write it all up when you have time. The key words will make everything come back to you and the important things will be there. Unless you spend all your days at a computer, it’s best to carry a book around for that, so that as soon as something comes to you, you can write it down.
Notepads can be equally important. I keep one with me, A6 size, fits in my pocket. When I see a word I don’t understand, I write it down and find the definition later. When I see something I want to remember, or use later, like a clever phrase or quote, I write it down. It can help your writing skills, your general knowledge, and really makes your mind more organised. You can make it more personal by naming your notepad or journal, but then, I name all my inanimate objects. My computer is called Seaweed! And all my plants have names too.
Anyway, this can be a really quick and amazing way to make your life that little bit easier to handle. Try it.
Another thing is, carry novels with you wherever you go. There’s so much time wasted waiting for buses and people and life in general that could be better spent… reading!! I’ve become an obsessive reader of recent. Read on all your journeys (unless you’re driving), read on the street, though not whilst crossing the road. Of course you could carry a DS or PSP with you too. I just think books are more convenient and less likely to be stolen. Although I do love games. I’m rambling. Life is great right now, I’m so cheerful. But that homework is sitting at the back of my mind like a raincloud. One day to do it. 
To finish off, let me tell you some things I have in my notepad.
Smorgasbord- n: a collection containing a variety of sorts of things (assortment, mixture, miscellanea, variety, salmagundi)
Mind like a kaleidoscope.
Sapiosexuality- Attraction to intelligence
Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz- longest German word meaning ‘beef labeling regulations and delegation of supervision law’.
Why is abbreviation such a long word?
Why do people have fluffy dice in their cars, out of all the fluffy things you can hang in a car?
Hehe.
Alessandre flumped into the frigid cafe seat and set his mug down with a clunk. He scratched his chin- or did it scratch him? It was hard to tell sometimes. the remains of a chemical ridden cleaning spray tickled his nostrils with a faint hygenic and sour smell. The latest mass manufactured pop songs played on a tinny radio which sounded marginally better than the clatter and clank of cutlery and mugs and a rattly coffee machine.
Looking out the window, Alessandre watched people hurry by. It was far too early for anyone other than businessmen and other early workers to be parading the street. Their status and wealth was symbolised by an expensive silk tie or a glittering watch.
Through the black and grey suits, Alessandre briefly spotted something odd. Sipping his watery coffee, he gazed, attention now fixed on the middle of the street; on a row of metal benches. His green eyes searched along until they met a figure. A girl a couple of years his junior sat and pulled a scarf tighter around herself, lest the cold morning gloom creep beneath her clothes.
Alessandre leaned forward, transfixed. He enjoyed watching people, but this girl was something else. Her dark curls and flawless skin were perfect and no amount of make up could match her pure beauty. A nebula radiating out into the encroaching blanket of human space.
He wanted to hear her, to touch her, but with his tousled, greasy hair and an emery board face, he was far below her. Feeling inadequate, Alessandre sighed. He wanted her and wanted to learn everything about her. Her idiosyncrasies, her dreams. Yet he had never met her.
The chill caught him, beckoning him out, as someone battled the wind out. Should he approach her? How would she react? Alessandre had never had any luck wth people, partly due to the fact that he was not particularly handsome or intelligent and never seemed to look clean. Added to this was the fact that he rather enjoyed watching people, which can come off a little creepy at times. He thought too hard, and civilisation thought him quiet and antisocial. If this girl was like the others, she would walk away. She would look at him like he had done something inexcusable, simply by being near her.
No, he thought. She must be different. There’s something amazing about her, and she might not even be disgusted by him.
Doubt struck again. She deserved someone better. Alessandre couldn’t give her anything. He didn’t even have a job. Shaking his head, he realised he was thinking too deeply into the situation. All he had to do was talk to her and that would be enough.
He wrenched his bottom from the seat. He never let himself live, only exist. Take the chance.
Gathering up his belongings, he made his way to the counter to pay, watching the bench the whole time. He turned to the door, and the girl stood up. Desperately, he ran out, forcing the wind’s hands away. He shrugged his bag onto his shoulder and made for the bench. A long coat flicked in the air, shoes clicked on the cobbled street, and she was gone.
