By the way, I got into Edinburgh University.
I’m sitting in my new room, which I’ve just tidied after the visit of my messy boyfriend. I feel like I’m in a hotel room, I really haven’t yet realised that I’m not going home. On Tuesday, my lectures begin, which is pretty exciting. Japanese, East Asian Civilisation and German.
The me a year or two ago would have been incredibly pleased. I’m not saying I’m not pleased, it’s just that with every great thing comes pain, and vice versa. I don’t think I realised that so much before. It’s hard to know what you haven’t experienced.
I’m doing a lot better than I expected. I’ve met a lot of people, and it’s only Freshers’ week. I’m not as afraid as I thought I’d be. I’m not as shy, not as outcast.
I seem pretty outgoing online, but really I’m as vulnerable as anyone else, and these past few weeks have helped me realise that.
I never thought I’d be so willing to give everything up for something so uncertain.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
Something that feels surprisingly refreshing is when it’s been windy and rainy and you have to walk a long way to get home. The rain stops and the wind pummels your clothes in all directions, slowly drying it out and making your body feel all numb. By the time you get home, you’re completely dry and slightly dizzy from the wind pushing you back for the past hour or so.
At my school, there’s this girl I only know a little. She always comes up with those sorts of philosophical ideas, most of them the typical “Do you think you see the colour blue the same way I do?”, but other times she comes up with some really thought provoking stuff. We were sitting in English and she said,
“The only way you can be truly happy is if you enjoy all weather, even rain.”
I thought about this for a while, and realised that it’s true. You wake up in the morning and see a beautiful sunny day. You don’t think “Oh god, here comes another crappy day…”. You feel positive and motivated, before the day has even begun. On grey depressing days, you just know it’s only going to get worse. It’s going to rain, your feet will get wet, your hair will be a mess, you’re going to be sitting in a puddle…
Life’s like that. Good things happen and you become motivated. You’re invincible. But the second something not so good happens, you’re apathetic and cannot be bothered doing anything. Life throws our brains off track. We’re really not designed for changes. Brains may hold terabytes of information but they can’t seem to deal with very much at once. We don’t have much brain ram.
Anyway, what I’m trying to get across is that you have to look at everything in life in a positive way. That often seems impossible, but it can be done. Maybe there was a reason that bad thing happened to you. Maybe you’ll be better off in the future. Maybe you learned from it. And mayhaps, you’ll start to appreciate life a bit more. Once you enjoy the rain, everything is more fun. There are more possibilities. It’s raining. So what? Some things feel better after the rain. Some pleasures feel more amazing when the pain has subsided.
